© Kate Russel 2019
I'm Tara khozein
/ˈtɑɹə xoʊˈzeɪn/ or TA-ruh ko-ZAYN
I am a classical singer, improviser, voice teacher, song maker*, and theater artist. I was born in Ecuador to a mixed Iranian-American family, was raised in New Mexico, and have lived, studied, and worked across the US and Europe. I explore the intersections of concert music and physical theatre with a special interest in extended vocal techniques**. I also teach singing, am a music director for theater, and a stage director for musicians.
After my formal education (classical singing at NMSU & physical theater at the Jacques Lecoq School), I moved back to my hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I directed circus, immersive theater, operetta, and children's and teen's performances, and established a sonic improvisation practice. While in Santa Fe, I became the lead teacher at Santa Fe Performing Arts, a company member of Theater Grottesco, and one of the original contributing musical artists at Meow Wolf's House of Eternal Return, where I later became a performer and eventually the content director for immersive performance. I moved to Budapest at the end of 2019, and became a part of the free improvisation, contemporary classical music, and experimental music scenes, performing alongside classical, jazz, noise, folk, pop, and electronic musicians. After teaching in-person voice lessons for over a decade, I also established an online voice studio.
My recent creative projects include two world premieres by Czech composer Ondřej Adámek: INES at Opera Köln, and CONNECTION IMPOSSIBLE with Ensemble Modern at the Bregenz Festival; Until there is nothing left to forgive with fine artist Zahra Marwan; Kate Soper's one-woman chamber opera IPSA DIXIT with Chatter ABQ; physical and vocal performances in ONCE WITHIN A TIME, a film by Godfrey Reggio with music by Philip Glass; the central role in Samu Gryllus's interactive opera, HOST OPERA; and my one-woman touring show IN TO OUT.
I am a member of multiple ensembles and bands including Kat and the Devil, PONT, JazzaJ's Budapest Improvisors Orchestra, and Timo Kinnunen's International Experimental Orchestra. I was also the interim artistic director of Budapest's Soharóza Experimental Choir in their 2023-24 season.
I have released four duo improvisation albums: Amuse-Bouches with Rhonda Taylor, Live at Lumen with Thea Soti, Burdeo-Buda-Bridges with Etienne Rolin, and Iterations (2021) with Carlos Santistevan. I also wrote a song used in Aida Shirazi’s “Yearning, Every Dawn” which premiered at Ojai Festival in 2023. A vocal improvisation album with visual artist and vocal improviser Brian Belott is also somewhere in the ether, as is an album with pianist/composer/vocalist Ernő Rubik. (You can also find a classical album on Spotify if you search my name, but when I recorded it, I was recovering from working with a very bad voice teacher, and I wasn't singing very well.)
I'm based in Budapest, Hungary and New York, NY.
*this is a term I've started to use recently. I write songs for solo voice, but songwriter sounds like I'm good at playing the guitar, and composer sounds like I know what all those saxophone transpositions are.
**extended vocal techniques are ways of vocalizing that are not traditionally used in classical music descending from the European tradition, but can be found in other traditions around the world

© Raunak Kapoor 2022
upcoming
June 10-21. Albuquerque, NM @ q-Staff Theater
BRIDGE PROJECT: HOME
theater residency
with Martin Boross
June 21. Albuquerque, NM @ q-Staff Theater
WELCOME HOME
multidisciplinary performance-cafe on the theme of "home"
August 8. Albuquerque, NM @ Albuquerque Museum
SCHOENBERG STRING QUARTET #2
soprano soloist
with ChatterABQ
August 14. Santa Fe, NM @ The Lensic
PETER MAXWELL DAVIES: EIGHT SONGS FOR A MAD KING
chamber opera (director)
with Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, ChatterABQ, and Michael Hix, baritone
August 16-24. Bath, ME. @ The Chocolate Church
BRIDGE PROJECT: FAMILY
theater residency
with Martin Boross
Films
Once Within a Time
By Godfrey Reggio, Philip Glass, and Jon Kane
Screening Now in the US and Canada
Credits: Hero and Soundtrack Vocals
Cicaverzum (Cat Call)
Directed by Rozália Szeleczki
Premiered at Tallinn Black Nights
Credits: Main Theme Lyricist & Singer