About Me
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Lauren Rigby is a cellist based in New York City. A PhD candidate in New York University's performance program, Rigby developed a strong interest in composition and improvisation over the last six years. While educated in the classical cello tradition, she branched out first by playing in a Boston-based experimental rock band from 2000-2002. Rigby has gone on to perform in classical, rock, folk, and jazz settings, and is an active freelance and recording artist in and around New York. From 2007-2009 she performed and collaborated with "Silhouette," a string quartet comprised of like-minded, passionate musicians devoted to the performance of contemporary music. Rigby continues to be an active player in a wide variety of orchestral, solo, chamber ensemble, and studio settings.She has worked with musicians from a variety of genres and can be heard on recordings by Cantinero, Numinous, Seymour Glass, vocalist Stevie Holland, jazz saxophonist Jason Rigby, pianist Brenda Earle, and bassist John Benitez. With Brenda Earle she has performed largely improvised original compositions at the New York State Summer Music Festival in 2006 and 2007. in 2007, Rigby Joined singer/songwriter/pianist Pilley Bianchi's band at NYC's the Cutting Room for the annual Mamapalooza Festival and joined Brenda Earle for Cornelia Street Cafe's Songwriters Beat. Other freelance work includes performances with the Chelsea Opera Company, Bianchi Musica, Numinous, the New Jersey Philharmonic, the Westchester Chamber Orchestra, the Monmouth Civic Chorus, the Chamber Orchestra of Northern Manhattan, the Astoria Symphony, the One World Symphony, singer/songwriter Erene, the Majnun Band, the Renaissance group, Sweet Amaryllis, Goodbye Picasso, singer/songwriter Daniel Zaitchek, Duncan Sheik, and singer/songwriter, Jodelle. She has performed in such venues as Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Makor, the Living Room, the Lit Lounge, Cornelia Street Cafe, the Puffin Room Gallery in Soho, the Cutting Room, Ars Nova Theater, Sweet Rhythm, the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, Bloomingdale School of Music, the Liederkrantz Foundation of New York, the Brooklyn Lyceum, the Zipper Factory, and Tenri Cultural Institute. She is on faculty at Great Neck Music Conservatory, Larchmont Music Academy, the New York State Summer Music Festival, and adjunct faculty at NYU. She has also been part of the NY Pops Music Mentors program at Long Island City High School. In August 2008 she performed and coached as a section leader for the National Sinfonia Orchestra of Trinidad and Tobago, where she will return again in 2009.Rigby is currently working on a compilation of improvised/original music for solo cello, and for cello with piano and additional instrumentation. She is also an amateur pianist, and an avid poet. Her doctoral research reflects a sociological look into the role of improvisation in the musical lives of cellists and how musical creativity influences identity. She is viewing these issues through the lens of feminist critical theory. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from Boston University where she studied with Andres Diaz and Michael Reynolds; Graduate studies at NYU with Marion Feldman. She is originally from Hastings-on-Hudson, NY and spent her adolescence in Asheville, NC.
