New Dreams, New Masters

Aurora Nealand is cooler than us and probably cooler than you.  A saxophonist, clarinetist, singer, composer, provocateur, and bandleader active in the vibrant music scene of New Orleans since arriving there in 2004, she has no use for duality.  "I think separating ‘musical life’ from ‘life’ at this point is a challenge for me,” she says.

After attending the renowned Conservatory at Oberlin College, where she designed her own major in Contemporary Music, Aurora moved to Paris to study at the Ecole du Theatre Physical Jacques Lecoq, taking the opportunity to explore the potential of music/sound for theatre. Since landing in New Orleans, she has been playing traditional New Orleans jazz and diving into the rich musical culture of the city. 

Today, she is a band leader and contributing member to a number of performing groups as a saxophonist, singer, composer, and improvisor.   She formed the band Royal Roses to tackle the oeuvre of Dixieland legend and fellow soprano saxophonist and clarinetist Sidney Bechet at Preservation Hall, a herculean task that earned her accolades in the national jazz community. Her solo project, Monocle, delights at the border of new music and pop, not unlike the work of spiritual predecessor Laurie Anderson.  And through organizations such as the Found Sound Nation and its Dosti initiative, she has advocated for music’s role in cross-cultural exchange. She and her partner Lisa Giordano of Sound Observatory New Orleans have curated all of the performances and social engagements opportunities that will happen during a week-long residency in NOLA.

Aurora is one of the most intriguing young jazz artists at work right now, “a thoroughly modern artist who works in a traditional vein,” according to OffBeat.  At this year's Big Ears festival, Aurora will premiere a new quartet with thee extraordinary musicians Tim Berne, Bill Frisell, and David Torn.  Berne, who helped upend jazz in the ‘80s, met Nealand last year in New Orleans and was struck by her incandescent explorations and the ways she had absorbed the original lingua franca of the city and then pushed beyond it into realms of free playing, experimental composition, and even ecstatic pop.