Joan la barbara john cage biography

JOAN LA BARBARA’s career as a composer/performer/soundartist explores the human voice as a multi-faceted instrument expanding traditional boundaries in developing a unique vocabulary of experimental and extended vocal techniques: multiphonics, circular singing, ululation and glottal clicks that have become her "signature sounds".

In 2008, La Barbara was awarded the American Music Center's Letter of Distinction for significant contributions to the field of contemporary American music. Her recording ShamanSong (1998) includes her composition ROTHKO, a “sound painting" inspired by the Rothko Chapel. Joan La Barbara (right) ©Ellen Rietbrock.

is a composer, performer, sound artist, actor, and renowned for her unique vocabulary of experimental and extended vocal techniques, influencing generations of composers and singers.

The project is in development with funding from New Music USA and the Aaron Copland Fund. Joan La Barbara is a composer and publisher member of ASCAP and is a member of American Composers Forum, SAG-AFTRA and AEA.

Joan La Barbara is a composer, performer, sound artist, and actor known for her unique vocabulary of experimental and “extended" vocal techniques.

She has performed Cage’s works for decades, and in 2013 was among the guest collaborators with Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony in “Making the Right Choices: A John Cage Centennial Celebration;” in 2016 she received the Foundation for Contemporary Arts John Cage Award. In 2007-08, La Barbara received a NYSCA Music Composition award to compose a new spoken word opera,/politial dance theatre work "An American Rendition", in collaboration with choreographer/theater artist Jane Comfort, which premiered September 2008 at Duke Theatre, NYC."Angels, Demons and Other Muses" placing the musicians of Ne(x)tworks within the audience, was presented on the Interpretations Series at Roulette in April 2010. "in Solitude this fear is lived...", a sound painting for amplified voice, orchestra and "sonic atmosphere" inspired by the minimalist work of Agnes Martin, placed the musicians of the American Composers Orchestra around and in the audience, premiering in March 2011 at Carnegie's Zankel Hall. "Journeys and Observable Events", placing musicians and actors in the many rooms of Greenwich House Music School, and allowing each audience member to create an individual experience traveling through the building, premiered May 6, 2011.

La Barbara composed and performed the "Angel Voice" for actress Emmannuelle Béart in the feature film "Date with an Angel", vocal solos on John Frizzell's soundscore for "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer", and performed the "Alien Newborn Vocals" for "Alien: Resurrection".

Educated at Syracuse and New York Universities and Tanglewood/Berkshire Music Center, she gained compositional tools as an apprentice with the numerous composers with whom she has worked for four decades.

In the early part of her career, she performed and recorded with Steve Reich, Philip Glass and jazz artists Jim Hall, Hubert Laws, Enrico Rava and arranger Don Sebesky, developing her own unique vocal/instrumental sound. These multi-channel works were originally performed with multiple speakers in unusual arrangements. La Barbara is composing a new opera inspired by Virginia Woolf and Joseph Cornell that explores the artistic process, interior dialogue, and sounds within the mind.

Live Music for Dance commissions include "Landscape over Zero" (2004-05 for Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company), "Fleeting Thoughts" (2005-06 for Jane Comfort & Company), and "Desert Myths/Isle of Dunes" (premiered at NJPAC April 29, 2006 featuring Ne(x)tworks and Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company). "Atmos" for flute and sonic atmosphere, commissioned by Meet The Composer/NYSFM, premiered March 2008 at Symphony Space, performed by Margaret Lancaster; recording was released on "Io", for New World Records in 2009.

Her multi-layered textural compositions were presented at Brisbane Biennial, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Warsaw Autumn, MaerzMusik Berlin, Rewire and Unsound festivals and Lincoln Center among many others. La Barbara's seminal work, Circular Song (1975-76) was included in the exhibition “This is a Voice" at the Wellcome Collection, London, United Kingdom (2016).

La Barbara was a DAAD Berlin Composer-in-Residence (1979) and has received awards including an International Society for Contemporary Music International Jury Award (1977), Meet The Composer (1990, 1994, 2008), FCA Emergency Grants (1994, 1999, 2010), Aaron Copland Fund recording grants (1998, 2013), a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Music Composition (2004), a New York State Council on the Arts Music Composition award (2007-2008), an American Music Center Letter of Distinction (2008), a Demetrio Stratos International Award for musical experimentation (2011), a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship (2013), New Music USA Project Grants (2013, 2014), and seven National Endowment for the Arts fellowships (Music Composition, Opera/Musical Theater, Inter-Arts, Recording (two), Solo Recitalist, and Visual Arts).

La Barbara earned a B.S.

from New York University in 1970. La Barbara was Artistic Director of the multi-year Carnegie Hall series, "When Morty met John", focusing on the music of John Cage, Morton Feldman and the New York School, and Artistic Director, Curator and Host of "Insights", a series of conversational encounters with distinguished composers for The American Music Center.

She has recorded for A&M Horizon, Centaur, Deutsche Grammophon, Elektra-Nonesuch, Lovely Music, Mode, Music & Arts, MusicMasters, Musical Heritage, New World Records, Newport Classic, New World, Sony, Virgin, Voyager, and Wergo. La Barbara's voice-with-electronics “Signing Alphabet" score for “Children's Television Workshop/Sesame Street" has broadcast worldwide since its creation in 1977.