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Majel Connery
While Connery holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and a composition degree from Princeton, her writing is deeply influenced by her parents' eclectic cassette tape collection circa 1984, which explains a compositional style part Schubert and part Elvis Costello (that’s a mangled quote from the Wall Street Journal).
Former New York Times critic Steve Smith favorably compared her voice to Shara Nova/My Brightest Diamond and Joanna Newsom, while Peter Margasak, writing for Bandcamp Daily, describes her vocals as “expertly drawing upon a wide swath of approaches—British folk, madrigal, art rock.” In opera circles, Connery is best known as co-founder and director of Chicago-based opera company, Opera Cabal (2007-2018), whose premiere of G.F. Haas’s ATTHIS at The Kitchen was described as “one of the most … searingly painful and revealing operatic performances in recent times (New York Times).
Connery left academia following a stint as Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley in 2015 to launch a career as a solo artist. Since then, as Mohr Visiting Artist at Stanford (2017), she commissioned and performed Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw’s “Contriving the Chimes,” written for Connery and the St. Lawrence String Quartet, and staged by opera director Christopher Alden. In 2016, as Mellon Visiting Artist at Wellesley, she commissioned and performed Aeolus, a throat-singing rock opera by Rome- and Berlin Prize-winning composer Ken Ueno. Connery recently co-taught a “Voice” seminar at Princeton with poet & beloved collaborator Jeff Dolven. She is bi-coastal, based in Brooklyn, NY, and Berkeley, CA, where she lives with her partner, neuroscientist Matt Walker.
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Majel Connery e il Questionario di Proust
by Paolo Peviani
Si definisce artista inclassificabile che non dice quasi mai di no a qualcosa. Cantante, compositrice, musicologa, conduttrice di podcast radiofonici, direttrice di Opera Cabal, un think tank rivolto all'unione tra lavoro creativo ed accademico nell'opera, Majel Connery ama mescolare le influenze classiche e dell'opera con una mentalità elettronica. Il tratto principale della mia musica Probabilmente il mio modo di usare la sintesi vocale. Ho un TC Helicon VoiceLive Touch2 e utilizzo una tastiera MIDI per ...
read moreMajel Connery & Felix Fan al Carambolage di Bolzano
by Giuseppe Segala
The Rivers Are our Brothers Majel Connery & Felix Fan Carambolage Bolzano 13.11.2023 La vocalist, compositrice e tastierista Majel Connery ha portato il proprio lavoro The Rivers Are our Brothers in un circuito italiano prevalentemente volto alla programmazione jazz, tra cui la Casa del Jazz di Roma e il Carambolage di Bolzano. Cosa che da un lato conferma la tendenza e l'urgenza dei musicisti delle generazioni più giovani a mettersi in gioco ...
read moreMajel Connery, Omer Avital, Nick Cave, Vijay Iyer and More New Releases
by Ludovico Granvassu
This week we go through another delicious stash of new and upcoming releases, many of them launched on Bandcamp on 1 May for the 'waived fee' events the website is promoting every first Friday of the month to support musicians in the time of Covid19. The cherry on top? The much anticipated first single, sung by Nick Cave, from Hal Willner's last production, Angelheaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan & T. Rex. Happy listening! PlaylistBen ...
read moreMajel Connery, un talento da seguire
by Vic Albani
Allora, andiamo calmi per ordine e con calma perché questa signora merita davvero attenzione e quindi anche più spazio del solito. Di sicuro pochissimi ne hanno già sentito parlare. Si chiama Majel Connery e la sua vita è divisa da tempo fra la bay-area in California e New York. Delle due realtà respira da sempre a pieni polmoni tutte le peculiarità. Musicologa, ex cantante d'opera, immensamente creativa e attiva in diversi territori di quello che si potrebbe definire ...
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