LAUREN NEWTON

Born in Oregon on US west coast, Lauren Newton has lived and worked in Germany since 1974. Performing contemporary classics and jazz, she is also a supreme improviser and music teacher (Graz, Berlin, Essen, Lucerne). She might be best known to the broader audience as the co-founder of the famous Vienna Art Orchestra, the ensemble under the direction of Matthias Rüegg with which she has performed and recorded for 12 years. In 1982 she formed Vocal Summit (with Bobby McFerrin, Jeanne Lee, Urszula Dudziak, Jay Clayton), and in the following year released her first solo album which was widely acclaimed by the German critics. Her rare ability to fluently and skilfully mix conventional vocal techniques with fully unconventional sound 'effects' makes her one of the most searched-after vocalists in the music scene today. She feels perfectly at home in free improvisation, is able and capable of singing Mahler's Songs on the Death of Children, she enraptures with a “regular” jazz band, and the list goes on and on… (Miha Zadnikar)