Website: www.lauraandel.com
Introduction:
Argentinean composer based in New York City. Her highly textural organic music, and sometimes ritualistic, draws musical elements from avant-garde jazz to contemporary classical.
Biography:
Laura Andel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she grew up. After living, studying, and performing in Argentina, she moved to Boston in 1993 to pursue studies in composition. Since then, she has focused mainly on composition for large ensembles and developing her own conducting as part of the compositional process. In 2000, Ms. Andel moved to New York City where she created the Laura Andel Orchestra, a large ensemble that features an unusual combination of instruments and unites musicians from diverse musical and cultural backgrounds that perform Andel's extended compositions.
Laura Andel has received several grants and awards for her work, among some of them are a Jerome Foundation Commission Grant through Roulette Intermedium (New York, NY, 2004), the Aaron Copland Fund Awards Recording Grant (New York, NY, 2002), and two times the Margaret Fairbank Jory Copying Assistance Program Grant (New York, NY, 1999-2001), both from the American Music Center, a Music Composition Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council (Boston, MA, 1999), two times a grant from the Senate for Culture of the City of Berlin (Berlin, Germany, 1998-1999), and the BMI Foundation-Jerry Harrington Jazz Composers Award (New York, NY, 1997). She has also been a music curator in residence at Music Omi (Ghent, NY, 2004), and a fellow composer in residence at MacDowell Colony (Peterborough, NH, 2002), Sacatar Foundation (Bahia, Brazil, 2004), Yaddo Artist Colony (Saratoga Springs, NY, 2004), Valparaiso Foundation (Mojacar, Spain, 2004), and Blue Mountain Center (Blue Mountain Lake, NY, 2006).
Ms. Andel holds a dual Bachelor of Music Degree from Berklee College of Music in Jazz Composition and Film Scoring (Boston, MA, 1996) . She also holds a Bachelor of Music Diploma in Tango Performance and Composition from Avellaneda College of Popular Music (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1991).
Artist's Statement:
Some of Andel's approaches to composition is giving extreme consideration to the individual sounds of each player, writing scores that balance composed elements with a variety of approaches to improvisation, and developing a very profound way of communicating with the ensemble, which functions as an integral part of shaping the sound. In her music, each performer is specially challenged to generate an intense connection among the other players for the music to function. Her highly textural organic music, and sometimes ritualistic, draws musical elements from avant-garde jazz to contemporary classical, combining them in a way which is hard to categorize.
Recent Works:
SomnambulisT, her first extended 46-minute work released in 2003 by Red Toucan Records.
In::tension:., her second extended 60-minute work released in 2005 by Rossbin Records.
Both works were specially created for the Laura Andel Orchestra in New York.