Lauren Amber Newton (born 16 November 1952) is an

avant-garde jazz Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz, experimental jazz, or "new thing") is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through the late 1 ...

and contemporary classical singer and founding member of the

Vienna Art Orchestra The Vienna Art Orchestra was a European jazz group based in Vienna, Austria. Organized at different times as either a big band or as a smaller combo, it was regarded as one of the leading European jazz ensembles and was an official cultural amba ...

Biography

Newton earned a degree in music at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a Public university, public research university in Eugene, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1876, the university is organized into nine colleges and schools and offers 420 undergraduate and gra ...

. In 1974 she moved to Europe and continued her music studies with

Sylvia Geszty Sylvia Geszty (born Sylvia Maria Ilona Wytkowsky; ; 28 February 1934 – 13 December 2018) was a Hungarian-German operatic coloratura soprano who appeared internationally, based first at the Staatsoper Berlin in East Berlin and from 1970 at the S ...

at the

State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart The State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart is a professional school for musicians and performing artists in Stuttgart, Germany. Founded in 1857, it is one of the oldest schools of its kind in Germany. It is one of the oldest and ...

. In 1977 she joined the

, touring widely with the group until 1989. With

Bobby McFerrin Robert Keith McFerrin Jr. (born March 11, 1950) is an American singer, songwriter, and conductor (music), conductor. His Vocal pedagogy, vocal techniques include singing fluidly but with quick and considerable jumps in Pitch (music), pitch—fo ...

Jeanne Lee Jeanne Lee (January 29, 1939 – October 25, 2000) was an American jazz singer, poet and composer. Best known for a wide range of vocal styles she mastered, Lee collaborated with numerous distinguished composers and performers who included Gunte ...

Urszula Dudziak Urszula Bogumiła Dudziak-Urbaniak (born 22 October 1943) is a Polish jazz vocalist. She has worked with Krzysztof Komeda, Michał Urbaniak (her ex-husband), Gil Evans, Archie Shepp, and Lester Bowie. In 2007, her 1970s song "Papaya" gained wides ...

and Jay Clayton she formed the Vocal Summit in 1982. Newton combines conventional techniques with unconventional vocal sounds. She has taught at the

Berlin University of the Arts The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the second largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research uni ...

University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz The University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, also known as Kunstuniversität Graz (KUG) is an Austrian university. Its roots can be traced back to the music school of the '' Akademischer Musikverein'' founded in 1816, making it the oldest un ...

in Austria,

Folkwang Hochschule The Folkwang University of the Arts is a university for music, theater, dance, design, and academic studies, located in four German cities of North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 1927, its traditional main location has been in the former Werden Abbey in ...

Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...

, Germany, and

Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts () (HSLU) is one of seven regional, public-funded public university, universities of applied sciences founded in 1997 in its current form. The University was called University of Applied Sciences of ...

Lucerne Lucerne ( ) or Luzern ()Other languages: ; ; ; . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking portion of the country. Lucerne is the capital of the canton of Lucerne and part of the Lucerne (district), di ...

, Switzerland. Her debut album, ''Timbre'' (1983), won the Annual German Critics Award. During the next ten years, she collaborated with Austrian poet

Ernst Jandl Ernst Jandl (; 1 August 1925 – 9 June 2000) was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator. He became known for his experimental lyric, mainly sound poems (''Sprechgedichte'') in the tradition of concrete and visual poetic forms. Poetry Inf ...

. She has also worked with

Jon Rose Jonathan Anthony Rose (born 19 February 1951) is an Australian violinist, cellist, composer, and multimedia artist. Rose's work is centered in the experimental music known as free improvisation, where he has created large environmental multimed ...

Fritz Hauser Fritz Hauser (born March 29, 1953, Basel) is a Swiss drummer, percussionist and composer from Basel, Switzerland. He began playing as a drummer while a teenager, and then studied as a classical percussionist at the City of Basel Music Academy. In ...

Vladimir Tarasov Vladimir Ilich Tarasov (; born 7 February 1939 in Moscow) is a Russian animator and animation director. He is best known for his Soviet-era science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of specula ...

Anthony Braxton Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto. Braxton grew up on the South Side of Chi ...

Christy Doran Christy Doran (born 1949) is a jazz guitarist born in Dublin, Ireland, and raised in Lucerne, Switzerland. Doran founded OM with Fredy Studer, Urs Leimgruber, and Bobby Burri in the 1970s; this ensemble recorded for ECM. He and Studer also work ...

, Bernd Konrad,

Peter Kowald Peter Kowald (21 April 1944 – 21 September 2002) was a German free jazz and free improvising double bassist and tubist. Career A member of the Globe Unity Orchestra, and a touring double-bass player, Kowald collaborated with many European f ...

Joachim Kühn Joachim Kurt Kühn (born 15 March 1944) is a German jazz pianist. Biography Kühn was born in Leipzig, Germany. He was a musical prodigy and made his debut as a concert pianist, having studied classical piano and composition, with Arthur Schmidt-E ...

Joëlle Léandre Joëlle Léandre (born 12 September 1951) is a French double bassist, vocalist, and composer active in new music and free improvisation. In the field of contemporary music, she has performed with Pierre Boulez's Ensemble InterContemporain, and ...

Urs Leimgruber Urs Leimgruber (1 January 1952 in Lucerne) is a Swiss saxophonist. He lived in Paris from 1988 to 2005. Then he came back to his home town, Lucerne. His fields of activity are improvisation, Jazz and 20th-century classical music. Discography ...

, Patrick Scheyder,

Aki Takase (born January 26, 1948) is a Japanese jazz pianist and composer. Biography Takase was born in Osaka and started to play piano at age 3. Raised in Tokyo, she studied classical piano at Toho Gakuen School of Music.Ankeny, Jaso"Artist Biography". ...

, and the Südpool-Ensemble directed by Herbert Joos. She performed

Adriana Hölszky Adriana Hölszky (born 30 June 1953) is a Romanian-born German music educator, composer and pianist who has been living in Germany since 1976. Biography Hölszky was born in Bucharest. In the years 1959–1969 she studied piano with Olga Rosca- ...

's ''Comment for Lauren'' and other works by Hans-Joachim Hespos, Bernd Konrad, Hannes Zerbe, and

Wolfgang Dauner Wolfgang Dauner (; 30 December 1935 – 10 January 2020) was a German jazz pianist who co-founded the United Jazz + Rock Ensemble. He worked with Hans Koller, Albert Mangelsdorff, Volker Kriegel and Ack van Rooyen and composed for radio, televi ...

. In 1993 she performed Wolfgang Schmiedt's adaptation for solo vocalist of

Mahler Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism ...

's ''

Kindertotenlieder (''Songs on the Death of Children'') is a song cycle (1904) for voice and orchestra by Gustav Mahler. The words of the songs are poems by Friedrich Rückert. Poems and setting The original were a group of 428 poems written by Rückert in 1833 ...

''. In 1998 she participated in the international conference Frau Musica (nova) at the conservatory in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

, Germany.

Discography

As leader

* ''Timbre'' ( hat ART, 1983) * ''Voiceprint'' (Extraplatte, 1988) * ''Art Is...'' (

Leo Leo is the Latin word for lion. It most often refers to: * Leo (constellation), a constellation of stars in the night sky * Leo (astrology), an astrological sign of the zodiac * Leo (given name), a given name in several languages, usually mas ...

, 1994) * ''18 Colors'' (Leo, 1997) * ''Composition 192'' (Leo, 1996) * ''Filigree'' (Hatology, 1998) * ''Altered Egos'' (Omba, 1998) * ''Out of Sound'' (Leo, 2002) * ''The Lightness of Hearing'' (Leo, 2002) * ''Face It'' (Leo, 2005) * ''Artesian Spirits'' (Leo, 2005) * ''SoundSongs'' (Leo, 2006) * ''Tenderness of Stones'' (Leo, 2007) * ''2 Souls in Seoul'' (Leo, 2008) * ''Stormy Whispers'' (Bandcamp, 2020) As member of

* '' Tango from Obango'' (Extraplatte, 1979) * '' Concerto Piccolo'' (hat ART, 1980) * '' Suite for the Green Eighties'' (hat ART, 1982) * '' From No Time to Rag Time'' (hat ART, 1982) * '' The Minimalism of Erik Satie'' (hat ART, 1984) * ''Jazzbühne Berlin 85'' (Amiga, 1986) * ''Nightride of a Lonely Saxophone Player'' (

Moers Moers (; older form: ''Mörs''; Dutch language, Dutch: ''Murse'', ''Murs'' or ''Meurs'') is a German List of cities and towns in Germany, city on the western bank of the Rhine, close to Duisburg. Moers belongs to the district of Wesel (distric ...

, 1986) * ''Inside Out'' (Moers, 1987) * '' A Notion in Perpetual Motion'' (hat ART, 1985) * ''Blues for Brahms'' ( Amadeo, 1989) * ''Innocence of Clichés'' (Amadeo, 1990) * ''Highlights: Live in Vienna'' (1993) * ''Two Little Animals'' (1994)

As guest

With

* 1994 ''Violin Music for Supermarkets'' * 1995 ''Eine Violine fur Valentin'' * 1997 ''Shopping.Live@Victo'' * 1998 ''Techno Mit Storungen'' With the Vienna Art Choir * ''From No Art to Mo(z)art'' (Moers, 1983) * ''Five Old Songs'' (Moers, 1984) * ''Swiss Swing'' (Moers, 1986) With the Vienna Art Special * ''Serapionsmusic'' (Moers, 1984) With others * 1996 ''Trio LTD'', Trio LTD * 1996 ''Wait Until Dark'', Secret Passion Orchestra * 2000 ''Not Missing Drums Project'', Urban Voices * 2004 ''Grunt, Chotjewitz: The Magic of a Flute'',

George Gruntz George Gruntz (24 June 1932 – 10 January 2013) was a Swiss jazz pianist, organist, harpsichordist, keyboardist, and composer known for the George Gruntz Concert Big Band and his work with Phil Woods, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Don Cherry, Chet Baker ...

* 2014 ''Dream a Little Dream'',

Pink Martini Pink Martini is an American band founded in 1994 by pianist Thomas Lauderdale in Portland, Oregon. Group members call it a little orchestra that crosses several styles, such as Classical music, classical, Latin music, Latin, traditional pop, and ...

References

External links

*
Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians
{{DEFAULTSORT:Newton, Lauren 1952 births Living people American expatriates in West Germany American expatriates in Switzerland American women jazz singers American jazz singers Avant-garde singers Free jazz singers People from Coos Bay, Oregon Avant-garde jazz singers University of Oregon alumni State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart alumni Feminist musicians Academic staff of the Folkwang University of the Arts Vienna Art Orchestra members American women academics 21st-century American women Academic staff of the Berlin University of the Arts