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Sasha Lazard, recording artist and performer, will play in Provincetown on Monday. |
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Sasha Lazard reaches for the high notes of musical possibility
By Sue Harrison
Banner Staff
Sasha Lazard, trained in opera and traditional chorale, found her niche not with other singers but with musicians. Through collaborations of sound she has created a musical genre that while not quite hers alone is certainly signature and dynamic.
Lazard will appear for one night only at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 20, at The Provincetown Theater, 238 Bradford St. Her performance is part of the New Provincetown Players summer concert series. Tickets are $25, $22 for NPP members, students and seniors. Call (508) 487-9793 or go to www.ptowntix.com.
Lazard, born and raised in New York, started out studying classical music but found herself interested in trying different things.
“In school [the San Francisco Conservatory of Music] I would hang out with the trombonist or the cellist, not other singers,” she says. “I started to do a lot of collaboration with them. Remember, in opera you don’t get the chance to work with electric guitar or percussion. There is no limit to the kinds of music you can make.”
Soon she was using her classically trained soprano to create soundscapes over synthesized tribal club music. She made her live debut with the new sound at Club Privilege in Ibiza, Spain, Europe’s largest nightclub, where she played for 8,000 clubgoers. Since then she’s recorded theme songs for movies like “Holy Smoke” and “Kettle of Fish” and has released a CD, “The Myth of Red.”
“Myth” is a sophisticated soundscape with electronic and live music that lays a base that her crystalline soprano soars over like a seabird over the waves. It plays like a dream-infused soundtrack for a perfect day.
She also recorded a CD, “Siren,” with Shawna Stone and another, “Moonfall,” as part of a trio featuring her voice, piano and cello.
She recently completed a five-song EP that includes a shimmeringly operatic version of Cyndi Lauper’s “All Through the Night,” a pop ballad that was always touching and heartfelt.
When Lazard was 15 she met Emily Olin, a pianist who had just arrived stateside from Russia. She barely spoke English, Lazard recalls, but as soon as Olin was hired to play piano during Lazard’s lesson the Russian began to show her insight into the music.
“She would make comments after the lessons or make connections about the music under her breath. I found she had a great take on what I was doing and she became the most consistent teacher I’ve had. When I was searching [for my style] she opened my mind to so many songs. And she has a great ear for the electronic tribal pulse.”
Lazard laughs and adds, “And she is wonderfully bossy and Russian. Everybody has to listen to her.”
Concert-goers will get to hear Olin on piano this Monday when she plays with Lazard and cellist Dave Eggar.
The program, Lazard says, is eclectic.
“It’s all music I love with no rhyme nor reason other than it’s what I’m drawn to. We will do an opera aria, some Broadway show tunes, “Fields of Gold” from my CD with Shawna Stone and some Russian music. [We have] a great synergy.”
And, there will be a premiere of “You’ll Come Back, You Always Do,” the theme song from the Norman Mailer movie “Tough Guys Don’t Dance.”
Lazard is married to filmmaker Michael Mailer and Norman is her father-in-law.
“Norman wrote the lyrics and in the movie it’s playing in the background in the bar scene. I first heard it when Norris Mailer [Norman’s wife] sang it and he recorded it.”
Lazard took it to Los Angeles and had it arranged for voice, cello and piano, and Provincetown audiences will be the first to hear it in this version.
Although she has been a frequent visitor to Provincetown because of her connection to the Mailers, this will only be the second time she has performed in town.
“I had such a magical time at my last [Provincetown] concert,” she says. “I’m very excited to be coming back.”
artseditor@provincetownbanner.com
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Aug 16th, 2007