American "avant-cabaret" artist
*Amy X Neuburg* -- voice and live electronics
performs 2 shows in Wellington:
Sunday 30 April Happy 8:30 PM: solo set 9:30 PM: improvisations with local musicians Jonny Marks (synth/vocals),
Alphabethead (turntable), Taylor Taylor (drums), Benjamin Klein (tuba), and Warwick Donald (electronics) $10
Wednesday 3 May Adam Art Gallery at Victoria University 6:00 PM $10
From Otago Daily Times, October 2004: "Wow! That was the one simple word that best described the one-woman musical
hurricane that was Amy X Neuburg last night... If diversity, creativity, and flat-out ability were all crimes, Neuburg
would have been locked up years ago. Her music should be played to children who express an interest in music as a lesson
in what is possible... Sometimes high art like this can disappear into itself. Not so with Neuburg. Her diverse array of
sounds (vocally and electronically) are matched by both her intelligent and emotionally connected lyrics and conversely
her sense of fun."
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Amy X Neuburg's electronic "avant-cabaret" performance is a world unto itself. In her dramatic, diva-esque stage show
she accompanies her 4-octave voice with electronic drums, vocal samples and real-time looping to build up thick choral
layers of her voice live on stage; the process is as fun to watch as it is to listen to. Her heavily text-based,
emotionally intense songs draw from a multitude of genres -- including rock, opera, musical theatre, and the avant-garde
-- but result in a unique style that is beyond categorization.
As current artist-in-residence at The Christchurch Arts Centre, Amy is delighted to be back in New Zealand, where her
whirlwind 2004 tour included headlining spots in the Otago Festival of the Arts and the Wellington Jazz Festival, shows
and workshops at several universities, and features on national television and radio.
Amy is well known among the U.S. new-music community. She has performed her solo work at festivals, colleges, museums
and concert halls throughout the U.S., with frequent performances in New York and in her home town of San Francisco. She
has also composed extensively for modern dance, experimental film and video, web media, art installations, and chamber
ensembles in combination with her voice and live looping electronics. She has produced four CDs of her music.
A classically trained singer, Amy also performs as a vocalist specializing in experimental music by fellow composers.
She has been featured in numerous contemporary music-theatre works and recordings, including tours throughout Japan and
Europe with three Robert Ashley operas.
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For lots more info, photos and sound samples, please visit http://www.amyxneuburg.com.
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"I think I'm in love. Neuburg is a new kind of multi-threat composerS. a wonder of sampling, overdubbing and electronic
manipulation of live soundS a fabulous singerS exhilarating originality. Nobody else sounds like Amy X. Emotionally, her
music is as complex as real life." -- Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
"She loops her voice and sings over her alter egos until she's a whole chorus, an opera, a circus actS Far more musical
than Laurie Anderson and a hell of a lot cheerier than Diamanda Galas, Neuburg has scoped out her own territory in the
gulf between pop and classical." --- Village Voice, New York
"Neuburg wields a phenomenal voiceS a singer as poised as she is powerful, a composer whose songs veer from canonical
precision to offhanded clout... a master with electronicsS an astonishing array of musical talents." -- New York Press
"Amy X Neuburg is a star -- a brilliant one... A classically trained vocalist, a composer, an electronic musician, a
poet, and an entertainerS Satirical, profound, humorous, and sexyS Experimental but always under total controlS Uses the
looper in the most skillful and artistic manner I've yet seen." -- electro-music.com
ENDS