Photo by Bobby Carnevale
Photo by Cameron Cuchelain
Photo by Cameron Cuchelain
With my dear buds and collaborators, Jeff Dolven, and David Scher (not pictured, because taking the picture).
SHORT BIO:
Majel Connery is a composer, vocalist and musicologist combining Classical influences with electronic mentality. Her voice has been called "superb" by the New York Times and her compositions "thoroughly Schubertian" by the Wall Street Journal. An educator working at the intersection of arts and scholarship, she has taught and mounted productions on campuses like Stanford, UC Berkeley, Wellesley and Princeton. As an advocate of women in music, she hosts the NPR/CapRadio podcast A Music of Their Own. Connery appears regularly as a solo artist making supernatural music about the environment, and with her art-rock duo Sky Creature. Her song cycle The Rivers are our Brothers is currently on tour with Grammy-winning ensemble Chanticleer. Connery holds a PhD in musicology from the University of Chicago and an A.B. in music composition from Princeton.
LONG BIO:
Majel Connery is an unclassifiable artist who rarely says no to anything. Her music ranges from the guttural to the sublime, appearing in punk rock clubs at night and by day at major destinations from The Kennedy Center to The Kitchen.
A vocalist and composer, Connery combines Classical influences with electronic mentality. Her singing has been called “superb” by the New York Times and her composition “thoroughly Schubertian” by the Wall Street Journal.
Connery is the host and producer of A Music of Their Own, an interview podcast on women in music (CapRadio/NPR). Her interest in radio began in 2019 after creating music for five episodes of Radiolab’s “Gonads” series (available on Bandcamp).
As a composer, her work includes “The Rivers are Our Brothers," an environmental song cycle currently on tour with Grammy-winning choir Chanticleer. She has also released multiple albums with composer-collective Oracle Hysterical, and the double EP Bear Mountain/Childworld with her art-rock duo Sky Creature.
In academia, Connery has held a variety of artist residencies and professorships at institutions including Princeton, Stanford, the University of Chicago, Wellesley College, and the University of California Berkeley. From 2007-2018, she co-founded and ran the experimental opera company, Opera Cabal, a think tank for the conjunction of creative and academic work on opera. Opera Cabal’s production of ATTHIS at The Kitchen was called “mesmerizing” by the New York Times.
Connery holds an M.A/Ph.D. in ethnomusicology and musicology from the University of Chicago and an A.B. in music from Princeton University. She lives part-time in Catskill, NY, part-time in Rockaway Beach, NY and the rest of the time in the world at large.
“the sultry music was superb when Majel Connery was airily singing”
“devotees of new music have long been enthralled by the work of vocalist and composer Majel Connery”
“The depth and control of her voice betray her classical vocal training, but like kindred spirit Shara Nova, Connery chooses a more straightforward sound that suits the emotional content of her work.”
—John Schaefer/New Sounds
“excellent vocals”
“REGINA SPECTOR-LIKE VOCALS”
“haunting, Bjork-like vocals”
“…uninflected and vibrato-free, alternately borrowing from the interpretive sophistication of jazz or musical theater and the deliberate naivete of folk-rock.”
—Wall Street Journal
“smooth, sultry vocals”
“Majel Connery has achieved the practically impossible.”