Shelley Hirsch

Vocalist, Composer, Performance Artist

Shelley Hirsch is a vocalist, composer, performance artist, whose written and improvised work for stage, concert, record, film, television and radio has been presented on 5 continents.

Hirsch has been called "enormously inventive, scathingly satiric and virtuosic… a brilliant overwhelming presence on stage" by the NY Times

Her work incorporates extended vocal techniques, real and imaginary language, international music styles, stream of consciousness, electronics, characterizations, storytelling, movement and mixed visual media.

She has performed improvised music with musicians Anthony Coleman, Christian Marclay, Ikue Mori, Hans Reichel, Elliot Sharpe, Joey Baron, Konk Pack, Paul Lovens, Toshio Kajiwara, Fred Frith, DJ Olive among others and can be heard on dozens of CDs including her fall releases of her Solo CD "The Far In Far Out Worlds of Shelley Hirsch on Tzadik (Nov 2001), and "Duets" with guitarist Uchihashi Kasuhisa on Innocence Records and "States" on Tellus; her storytelling CD "O‘ Little Town of East New York" on Tzadik; "Haiku Lingo" on No Mans Land (both with keyboardist David Weinstein) and with the groups September Band and X-Communication (both on FMP) She can also be heard on CDs by Richard Teitelbaum, Jon Rose, Elliot Sharp, Nicolas Collins, John Zorn, David Moss, Sven Ake Johannson and Alexander Von Schlippenbach, Butch Morris, Jim Staley, Hans Koch and Martin Schutz and many compilation CDs.

Hirsch has presented her mostly staged solo pieces at prestigious festivals, theaters and museums around the world including The Hebbel Theater (Berlin), WienerFestWochen (Vienna), The Zurcher TheaterSpektakel (Zurich) Adelaide State Theater (Australia) The Whitney Museum (NYC).

She is the subject of 2 short films made for German TV and is a lead actor in the award winning "Wild Sound" and "OrianienStr" a feature film produced for ZDF television

Hirsch is the recipient of many grants, fellowships, awards and residencies in music composition, performance art, new forms, and interdisciplinary categories.