Elodie Lauten - Information Kit
Contents Biographical summaries Press Quotes Composition List Discography Awards, Honors and Commissions Bibliography: Articles by Elodie Lauten Bibliography: Articles about Elodie Lauten Exhibition List Download press photo Contacts: |
Short BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY Elodie Lauten is a composer, performer and media artist. She started as a singer/songwriter and became a pioneer of electronic music since the early 70s. While at NYU, her Master’s thesis, an opera for the Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument, The Death of Don Juan, received an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. She has composed a lot of electronic music, in addition to other projects of electro-acoustic, electronic, vocal, chamber and orchestral music, richly textured with driving rhythms, surprising chord changes and occasional dramatic dissonance, but always ear-friendly and with a unique signature. As a leading exponent of post-minimalism, she was listed among the most influential composers of the last three decades (Sequenza 21). Her piano, electronic, orchestral compositions and five operas have had 30 releases on 15 different major and independent labels in the US and Europe. Her music was presented by the Lincoln Center Festival, the New York City Opera, The Whitney Museum, throughout America with performances and university residencies, and in Canada and Europe, notably at the Paris Museum of Modern Art. In 2009 her Two-Cents Opera had a three-week run at Theater for the New City, and in 2010 an extensive reissue of her piano music was released by Unseen Worlds. About her multimedia work shown as part of the Women Forward exhibition in 2009, James Baldwin Cohen said: “Her highly sophisticated use of today’s advanced technology has opened a new dimension in the art world.” She received a Bachelor’s in Economics from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris and a Master’s in Composition from New York University and has been on faculty at NYU and CUNY. Additional information is available from: http://www.elodielauten.net.
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BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY Composer Elodie Lauten's musical oeuvre includes electronic and electro-acoustic pieces, as well as chamber and orchestral music. The landmarks are her unique neo-operas - some of which she directed - evolving or deconstructing the classic form: The Two-Cents Opera (2008), The Death of Don Juan (1985/2010), Existence (1991), The Deus Ex Machina Cycle (1997), Orfreo (2004) and Waking in New York, portrait of Allen Ginsberg (1999), which was showcased at the New York City Opera and appeared on a list of the most influential works of the last three decades. In July 2008, the CD reissue of The Death of Don Juan by Unseen Worlds has stimulated much curiosity and interest: “Truly captivating from the outset, highly recommended…a long-overlooked masterpiece of new music…Lauten was mining new areas of musicalexpression that wouldn’t be fully discovered for decades to come.” Other Music; “…a milestone.” Pitchfork; “Fascinating.” Wire Magazine (UK). Lauten's music has been presented by the Lincoln Center Festival, the New York City Opera, WNYC, The Kitchen, the Performing Garage, the Dance Theater Workshop, La Mama, the Soho Baroque Opera, Downtown Music Productions, AFMM, Interpretations, the SEM Ensemble, The Whitney Museum, and the Paris Museum of Modern Art. Over the years she received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, ASCAP, Meet the Composer, the American Music Center, and The Music Liberty Initiative. The Bozeman Symphony Society commissioned her for a symphony to celebrate the new millennium. The current discography includes 30 titles to-date, released on Lovely Music, O.O. Discs, Recently, Lauten's music was featured in the Seattle Chamber Players' Classics of Downtown program along with major names in the industry. In 2010 she performed a series of program of her tangos in New York nursing homes for the elderly and AIDS patients and was involved in a benefit for Haiti earthquake victims. She performed at the Howl festival in New York in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Her Two Cents Opera had a three-week run at the Theater for the New City in March 2009. She performed her 9/11 work S.O.S.W.T.C. at the New Museum on the anniversary date of 9/11/09. Not a stranger to visual art, she has had solo and group exhibitions since the 1980s. Recently her muldimedia art and digital images were featured in the Women Forward show at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center (along with work by Yoko Ono and Judy Chicago). Lauten was educated in Paris at the Lycée Claude Monet, the Conservatoire and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques as well as New York University where she received a Master’s in Music Composition and later taught on the composition faculty. She is a writer/publisher member of ASCAP. She is a board member of Lower East Side Performing Arts and the Art Loisaida Foundation. She contributes blogs to the award-winning classical music internet magazine Sequenza21. She is on the faculty at New York City College of Technology. Her work is documented in many books and magazine articles (see bibliography), on Wikipedia and through an extensive web site at http://www.elodielauten.net.
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ALTERNATE BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY The music of Elodie Lauten is tonal and modal, richly textured with driving rhythms, surprising chord changes and occasional dramatic dissonance, but always ear-friendly. She has been called a pioneer of post-minimalism. Her music has been presented in New York by the Lincoln Center Festival, WNYC, The Whitney Museum, The Kitchen, the Performing Garage, La Mama, the SEM Ensemble; also by the Chicago Arts Festival, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Music Gallery in Toronto, and the Paris Museum of Modern Art. Herpieces span categories and styles, with fully scored as well as improvised music, piano music, musical theater, orchestral, chamber and electronic music but herlandmarks are unique "neo-operas" evolving or deconstructing the form: The Deathof Don Juan, The Deus Ex Machina Cycle and Orfreo both scored for Baroque ensemble, and Waking in New York, setting the poetry of Allen Ginsberg. Her 30 releases appear on a variety of labels: Lovely Music, Point/Polygram, O.O.Discs, New Tone (Italy), Frog Peak, Studio 21, Pitch, Capstone, Studio 21, 4-Tay,MusicWorks, the Wire, Innervisions, etc. An extensive reissue of her piano music was released by Unseen Worlds in 2010. Her Variations on the Orange Cycle for solo piano was included on Chamber She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the As a visual artist, she has frequently exhibited in Soho, Chelsea and the East Village in New York. A retrospective of her drawings, collages and digital art, along with works by Yoko Ono and Judy Chicago, was recently included in the WomenForward group exhibition praised by Mayor Bloomberg (April-May 2009) at the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center in Brooklyn. Born and raised in Paris, she has lived in downtown New York since the mid-70s. She holds a Master’s in Music Composition from New York University where she studied with Dinu Ghezzo and where she has also taught composition. She is currently on the faculty at the New York City College of Technology. Additional information is available from: http://www.elodielauten.net. |
PRESS QUOTES “Elegiac melodies…. lovely, effecting and affecting…. a fixture of the New York scene.” THE NEWYORK TIMES “A composer of enchanting music… a seminal figure…a major talent.” “A force on the new music scene.” FANFARE “Absolutely gorgeous.” ARTSJOURNAL “The poetry of Allen Ginsberg has inspired a wide range of composers …In terms of authenticity,however, all are trumped by Lauten’s moving memorial to her creative mentor”. NEW MUSIC BOX “Lauten reveals greater artistry the further you look beneath the surface”. GRAMOPHONE UK “One of the most powerful works to bloom out of the ashes of the World Trade Center attacks was Elodie Lauten’s S.O.S.W.T.C.” NEWYORK PRESS “A grand work that we are likely to return to again and again… timelessly beautiful…” 21ST CENTURY MUSIC “A spiritual complexity that is no stranger to the best works of the classical chamber music tradition.” CHAMBER MUSIC AMERICA “At once sophisticated and transparent.” EXPOSE “Mesmerizing … extraordinary.” OPTION MAGAZINE “Hypnotic…” TIME OUT Reissue of The Death of Don Juan (Unseen Worlds), 2008 Review of the Women Forward exhibition by James Baldwin Cohen |
PARTIAL LIST OF COMPOSITIONS Opera Orchestral Electronic/electro-acoustic Chamber Music Piano Music |
DISCOGRAPHY ELODIE LAUTEN Releases Piano Soundtracks CD Piano Works Revisited 2 CDs The Two-Cents Opera DVD The Death of Don Juan CD Orfreo DVD Piano Soundtracks CD Orfreo CD Hope CD Harmonic Protection Circle CD Single Waking in New York CD The Mystery of the Elements CD S.O.S.W.T.C. CD Year 2000 – 50th Year Retrospective CD The Deus Ex Machina Cycle 2 CDs Inscapes from Exile CD Tronik Involutions CD Tronik Involutions CD Blue Rhythms CD The Death of Don Juan LP Concerto for Piano and Piano Works LP Orchestre Modern EP
COLLECTIVE RELEASES along with works by other artists Individual Mythologies MusicWorks Compilation 107 Wiretapper 22 Electronical Harpsichord Alive Other Places The Time Is Now The Aerial #4 Tellus #16 - Cassette AS A PRODUCER OF OTHER ARTISTS Uptown Downtown Dry Ice Tunes from the Lower East Side AS A GUEST ARTIST Another Thought The Native Americans Arthur’s Landing |
AWARDS, HONORS & COMMISSIONS Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by LMCC, for The Death of Don Juan, 2011 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY: ARTICLES BY ELODIE LAUTEN Elodie Lauten’s “Music Underground” blog (more than 100 articles) from 2005 to-date, in ASCAP Deems Taylor award-winning classical music internet publication Sequenza21. http:/www./sequenza21.com/lauten Other Articles by Elodie Lauten Skirting the Post Classic Stretch, 2004, New Music Box, American Music Center, www.amc.net/newmusicbox The Orpheus Complex, Music & Psyche, #4, 2005 Philosopher Stones: Dynergy in musical composition, 2004, www.elodielauten.net Concepts, www.elodielauten.net, 2001 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY: PARTIAL LIST OF ARTICLES ABOUT ELODIE LAUTEN Books / Internet Hold on to your dreams; Arthur Russell and the downtown music scene by Tim Lawrence, 2009 Downtown, by Kyle Gann, a collection of articles published in the Village Voice over the last 20 years, University of California Press, 2006 NovoCento MusicDictionary, Italy, 2005 Soho – The Rise and Fall of an Artist Colony, by Richard Kostelanetz, Routledge, 2003 La Musica Minimalista, by Giovanni Antognozzi, Rome, Italy, 2000 American Music in the 20th Century, by Kyle Gann, Schirmer, 1997 New Sounds, by John Schaefer, Harper & Row, 1987 Wikipedia
Newspapers & Magazines Orfreo DVD (4Ta), January 2011, AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE |
ART/MULTIMEDIA EXHIBITIONS 2010 - LES Festival of the Arts Group Exhibition, Theater for the New City 2009 - LES Festival of the Arts Group Exhibition, Theater for the New City 2009 - Women Forward Group Exhibition, Williamsburg Art & Historical Center 2007 - Correspondences, an audio-visual internet exhibition on Cybergallery66 2005 - Talismans, Arts Loisaida group exhibition, Cork Gallery at Lincoln Center, New York 2004 - Talisman, Arts Loisaida group exhibition, Cork Gallery at Lincoln Center, New York 2003-04 River Meditations, video installation in collaboration with artist Rosalind Schneider, Hudson River Museum, shown from October 2003 to May 2004 (8 months) 1998 - Group exhibition, the Boston Visionary Cell, at Federal Reserve Gallery, Boston 1994 - The Gaia Cycle – drawings and scores, Nonsequitur Gallery, Albuquerque, NM 1988 - Sound/sculpture installation, in collaboration with Carl Karas: Remembrance of Things Past, after the work of Marcel Proust, Penine Hart Gallery, New York 1983 - Sound installation: We are the dinosaurs of Year 2000; women group show: Small Walls Gallery, New York |