Aurora Nealand’s Inquiry Quintet

Biography

Aurora Nealand strives to live at the intersection of Lunatic and Librarian. She is a composer/multi-instrumentalist (saxophones, accordion, voice), and social-practice organizer based in New Orleans, Louisiana.  She’s been a prominent force in the New Orleans Traditional Jazz and Improvised music scenes since 2004, and is deeply interested in the sonification of everyday objects and knowledge-generation through the stories and histories that Sound (with a capital S) contain. Nealand spent years playing in streets, clubs & second-line parades while learning from her elders about the traditions, sounds & stories that build the New Orleans Traditional Jazz lexicon. She leads The Royal Roses, which draws their approach to collective improvisation through embracing the lineage of collectives spanning from the New Orleans Early Jazz traditions, to the AACM, and beyond. Since 2013, Nealand has worked as a facilitator for Found Sound Nation -an organization hosting international musical collaboration through residencies (One Beat), programming & concerts. She is a regular performer/educator in Jazz at Lincoln Centers’ “Let Freedom Swing” program (educational concerts around the USA). In 2022/23, Nealand (and co-creator Jebney Lewis) created “City Songs” for the Big Ears Festival –  a community sonic-map-making program, based on works by local young writers and beat-makers paired with visiting Festival Artists. The City Songs project has been invited to create programming for Ottawa and Montreal Jazz Fest in 2024. In 2023, Nealand was commissioned by the Instigation Orchestra (a collective of improvisors and musical mavericks from the Chicago & New Orleans): her 60-minute piece, “The Book of Communal Howling”, debuted at Hyde Park Jazz Festival 2023.

She is co-founder of SONO (Sound Observatory New Orleans) an organization supporting workshops of new music in the New Orleans region. Nealand has been involved with the Walden School for Young Composers (as a teacher/performer) for 20 years, and was invited as a guest-teaching artist at the Hochschule fur Musik (Koln, Germany), and UMBC in 2024. She has been featured on NPR’s Music Inside Out & American Routes and awarded residencies at MacDowell Colony, New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center,  Atlantic Center for the Arts, and voted “Best Female Performer, Best Saxophonist, and Best Traditional Jazz Band” in the New Orleans Off-Beat Awards spanning various years between 2016-today.

Outside of the Royal Roses, Nealand’s other musical projects include The Monocle Ensemble, (her original music solo project),  Oceans And Trio, Panorama Jazz Band, John Hollenbecks “George” and the Danger Dangers.  In 2019 she debuted KindHumanKind- a 90 minute fully staged theatrical show at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, based on her original music.

As a performer, Nealand has toured as a featured artist to national & international festivals including Montreal Jazz Festival, Berlin Jazz Festival, Istanbul Jazz Festival, Big Ears Festival, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, MPB Jazz Festival (Natal, Brazil), Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Summerstage NYC & The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.   She has worked with Preservation Hall Allstars, Bill Frisell, Tim Berne, Animal Collective, Pauline Oliveros, Arto Lindsey, Germaine Bazzle, John Boutte, Johnny Vidacovich and many more.