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Performance photo of soprano and theater artist Tara Khozein

New & old songs

pre & live-composed

​TarA Khozein

Soprano

© 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

Head shot of soprano and theater artist Tara Khozein

© 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

Stream here

Cicaverzum (Cat Call)

Directed by Rozália Szeleczki

Premiered at Tallinn Black Nights

Credits: Main Theme Lyricist & Singer

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