Laurie Anderson Composer

Biography

Laurie Anderson was born in 1947 in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia University in art history and sculpture, she created performances in New York in the 1970s, notably at The Kitchen. She began her musical career with the single O Superman in 1980, which reached second place on the UK charts, paving the way for her album Big Science. Her other albums include Mister Heartbreak, United States Live, Strange Angels, and Bright Red.

In 2001, she joined the Nonesuch Records label with the album Life on a String, followed by Live in New York (2002), recorded at New York’s Town Hall. Laurie Anderson alternates between simple text recitals and sophisticated multimedia shows. Among her major works are United States I–V (1983), Empty Places (1990), and The Nerve Bible (1995). She has published texts from her performances in Extreme Exposure, contributed the “New York” entry to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and in 2006 the publisher 7L released her drawing collection Night Life.

In 2003, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon dedicated a retrospective to her titled The Record of the Time: Sound in the Work of Laurie Anderson. As a composer, she has collaborated on films by Wim Wenders and Jonathan Demme, on choreographies by Bill T. Jones, Trisha Brown, and Molissa Fenley, as well as on theater pieces. Admired for her pioneering use of technology in art, she collaborated with Interval Research Corporation (a laboratory founded by Paul Allen and David Liddle) to explore new creative tools.

In 2002, she was appointed NASA’s first artist-in-residence, which resulted in the solo tour The End of the Moon (2004).

In 2007, she received the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for her outstanding contribution to the arts.

In 2011, she presented the exhibition Forty-Nine Days in the Bardo at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, and received the Honorary Legends Award from the Pratt Institute. In 2016, her exhibition Habeas Corpus at the Park Avenue Armory received the Yoko Ono Courage Award for the Arts.

Immerse in the Paris Opera universe

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