Frauke Aulbert is considered one of the most active and versatile phenomena in new music, in which she appears as a composer, performance artist and curator, and has gained international recognition especially as a soprano and extreme vocalist. Her own works fuse experimental music, media art, text, costume, dance and the most extreme vocal techniques. After studying opera singing, she continues to explore the human voice with all its possibilities.
As a soprano and vocal-acrobat “Hamburg’s queen of avantgarde” (Hamburger Abendblatt Jan. 2010) Frauke Aulbert can offer an almost infinite, impressive vocal sound palette which enfolds a nearly four octave range. Next to classical singing (diploma), over- and undertone-singing, multiphonics, techniques from Bulgarian folclore, Korean gugak, noh, gamelan, jazz, dhrupad, beatboxing a.s.o. she continuously researches vocal techniques and adds them to her skills.
Frauke Aulbert was awarded various prizes and grants, a.o. the first price by the Stockhausen-foundation, as well as artist residencies in Rome (Goethe Institut), Paris (Cité Internationale des Arts) and Stuttgart (Akademie Schloss Solitude) in 2016/17 (for her project ‘Beatboxing and the Avant Garde’) and at Villa Kamogawa, Kyoto, in 2020, where she studied the music and singing of geisha in Gion, Kyoto, Noh-theatre, Kamigata-mai (geisha dance) and Butoh.
In numerous collaborations with composers with over 60 world premieres, some of them staged and/or choreographed by Aulbert, she has experienced the most diverse styles of contemporary music. She has worked with Ensemble Garage, names ensemble, HANATSUmiroir, Szymanowski-string-quartett, DissonArt, L'art pour l'art, MAM, Ensemble S201, Shanna Pranatitis-Gutierrez, Yannael Quenel, Margarete Maierhofer-Lischka, Enikö Ginzery, Eva Zöllner, with Companie le Grain, Opera silens and the conductors Christoph Löser, Johannes Kalitzke and Peter Rundel, among others.
Concerts led her to festivals all over the world: Witten Days for New Chamber Music, Casa Giacinto Scelsi Rome, Radio France/Festival Présence, ZKM, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Onassis Centre Athens, International Darmstädter Ferienkurse, LIG Art Hall Seoul, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Plano B in Lapa/Rio de Janeiro, German Consulate New York, HAU Berlin, Frau Musica Nova, Greek National Opera Athens, Bachfest Tübingen, Klangspuren Schwaz, Schönes Wochenende Düsseldorf, Sacrum Profanum Krakau, Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker, International Stockhausen-Summerclasses, Klangwerkstatt Berlin, Hamburger Klangwerktage, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Sonic Fusion Manchester, Rainy Days Luxembourg, Festival Rümlingen, Ear Taxi Chicago, Klang Copenhaguen, What’s next Brussels, Berghain Berlin and many more, to Brasil, the USA, Australia, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Tunisia, Georgia, South-Korea and Japan.
Her own works often integrate various media like light, costume, props, dance/bodywork, live- and electronic music, text or video. Her compositions have been performed at festivals such as Resonant Bodies New York, Warsaw Autumn, Bachfest Tübingen, at the Greek National Opera Athens, Festival Átlátszó Hang Budapest, Elbphilharmonie, at Ensems Valencia, Oh-Ton Oldenburg, and Klang! Copenhagen, Performing Arts Festival Berlin, Frequenz Kiel, Sommer in Stuttgart, Sommer in Stuttgart, Kontraklang etc..
She has been recoding for film ('The Future', Miranda July), CD (Decoder Ensemble, Magic Malik etc.) and radio (Deutschlandradio, RAI, Radio France etc.)
Aulbert has collaborated with composers such as Chaya Czernowin, Iris ter Schiphorst, Georges Aperghis, Vinko Globokar, Neo Hülcker, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Hans-Joachim Hespos, Simon Stockhausen, Brigitta Muntendorf, Heera Kim, Michael Maierhof, Geoffroy Drouin, Elo Hübner, Jennifer Walshe, Martin Schüttler, Gordon Kampe, Johannes Kreidler, Christian Wolff, Jagoda Szmytka, Cathy Milliken, François Sarhan, Juliana Hodkinson, Niels Ronsholdt, Sofia Gubaidulina and Alexander Schubert. She has been recoding for film ('The Future', Miranda July), CD (Decoder Ensemble, Magic Malik etc.) and radio (Deutschlandradio, RAI, Radio France etc.)
Aulbert is artistic (co)director of the ensembles Collect/Project (Hamburg/Chicago), Forum Neue Vokalmusik, the performance collective Aulbert/Saiki (Hamburg/Leipzig) and since 2023 high soprano at Trio Generator (with Natalia Pschenitschnikova and Anna Clementi) as well as founding member of Decoder Ensemble. She studied in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain, and in Kiel and Hamburg, Germany. Her diploma thesis examined ‘Overtone singing in Contemporary Music’. Since 2020 she conducts the Festival für Immaterielle Kunst, which combines performative contemporary music with performance art. She is based in Hamburg, Germany.
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