Composer Blogs@Sequenza21.com
Composer/keyboardist/producer Elodie Lauten creates operas, music for dance and theatre, orchestral, chamber and instrumental music. Not a household name, she is however widely recognized by historians as a leading figure of post-minimalism and a force on the new music scene, with 20 releases on a number of labels.

Her opera Waking in New York, Portrait of Allen Ginsberg was presented by the New York City Opera (2004 VOX and Friends) in May 2004, after being released on 4Tay, following three well-received productions. OrfReo, a new opera for Baroque ensemble was premiered at Merkin Hall by the Queen's Chamber Band, whose New Music Alive CD (released on Capstone in 2004) includes Lauten's The Architect. The Orfreo CD was released in December 2004 on Studio 21. In September 2004 Lauten was composer-in-residence at Hope College, MI. Lauten's Symphony 2001, was premiered in February 2003 by the SEM Orchestra in New York. In 1999, Lauten's Deus ex Machina Cycle for voices and Baroque ensemble (4Tay) received strong critical acclaim in the US and Europe. Lauten's Variations On The Orange Cycle (Lovely Music, 1998) was included in Chamber Music America's list of 100 best works of the 20th century.

Born in Paris, France, she was classically trained as a pianist since age 7. She received a Master's in composition from New York University where she studied Western composition with Dinu Ghezzo and Indian classical music with Ahkmal Parwez. Daughter of jazz pianist/drummer Errol Parker, she is also a fluent improviser. She became an American citizen in 1984 and has lived in New York since the early seventies

Visit Elodie Lauten's Web Site
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Moved by art

It was at the A.I.R. Gallery, all the way on the West side on 25th Street, in a modern, concrete building but with the feeling of the old seventies Soho. The walls were action-packed with hundreds of small pieces of all possible styles: from the grim, ars povera pieces like pages of an old book stacked up and waxed, to pink ceramic rotund shapes, to abstract watercolors, to pieces so delicately woven they could have been worn as jewelry, in every material, set of colors, style, even three-dimensional self-portraits in the most unexpected rendition - 354 artists total, all women. The list is too large for me to reproduce here. The vitality of the art aided by the cleverness of the curating makes for a great spring eye-opener. There is also an online 'silent auction', and since the pieces are priced from $100 - $500 on average, one could even contemplate owning one of these remarkable women's works.
www.airnyc.org