Biography
Live Maria Roggen is a Norwegian improvising vocal jazz performer, composer and producer. She graduated from NTNU, Trondheim in 1998, started teaching at the Norwegian Academy of Music in 2006 and became a professor in 2012.
When Live Maria first started performing in 1994, she played unconventional, improvised concerts. She later became known for singing jazz standard tunes "with a personal twist" in various band collaborations, the most prominent of which was the quartet Come Shine (1998-2019).
Her two most central works as composer and lyricist are Circuit Songs (solo album, 2007) and Apokaluptein - The Uncovering (commission work to Vossajazz 2015), but she has written music and lyrics in most of her collaborative projects throughout the years, including Tu'ba, Wibutee, Trondheim Voices, Dingobats, Live&Lien, Hülsmann Oktett and more.
In recent years, Live Maria Roggen has returned to improvised music making, with and without electronics. Most of the projects she is currently involved in, have improvisation and spontaneity as core material:
- Intuitive improvisation with internalized musical material - for example with Ingfrid Breie Nyhus in the project (un)Romantic, plus with various jazz musicians in a number of other settings.
- Structured collective improvisation with the vocal ensemble Trondheim Voices and Asle Karstad - in productions such as Rooms&Rituals 2017-2021, Fartein Valen remix 2022, Circles with Nils Henrik Asheim 2023, and Bedrock 2023.
- Exploratory, situational improvisation - with the art project/collective Wild&Art in durational performances such as Popludium 2013, Gjestehus 2015, Saturns Hage 2020 and Saturns Platz 2022.
As a vocal teacher Live Maria Roggen has one foot in ear-based jazz schooling and one foot in a more open artistic approach. On one hand, she would love for students to embody the craft of jazz, to become able to recognize and navigate through elements such as harmonic structures, upper structures and scales, to gain a firm sense of groove, time and periods, learning to place their phrases with authority. On the other hand she believes that there is no ready-made mold everyone should to fit into, no reason why you should try to become the same as everybody else as long as you work creatively, embodied and ear-based, developing your artistic skills and your own craft through gradually realizing your visions.
Links
Key releases
- 2024 Live Maria Roggen, Ingfrid Breie Nyhus & Morten Qvenild «Symfoni» (LabLabel)
- 2023 Live Maria Roggen & Ingfrid Breie Nyhus «Skymt» (LabLabel)•
- 2022 Live Maria Roggen & Ingfrid Breie Nyhus «Demanten» (EP, LabLabel)
- 2022 Come Shine «Coming Home» (closing triple album, Jazzland)
- 2018 Trondheim Voices & Asle Karstad «Rooms & Rituals» (Grappa)
- 2016 Live Maria Roggen & Helge Lien: «YOU» (Ozella)
- 2016 Trondheim Voices, Jon Balke & Batagraf «On Anodyne» (Grappa)
- 2016 Come Shine med KORK: «Norwegian Caravan» (Lawo Classics)
- 2016 Live Maria Roggen: «Apokaluptein» (Kirkelig Kulturverksted)
- 2014 Come Shine: «Red And Gold» (Jazzland)
- 2011 Live Maria Roggen & Helge Lien: «Låvesalg» (Jazzland)
- 2010 Trondheim Voices «Improvoicing» (MNJ rec)
- 2007 Live Maria Roggen: «Circuit Songs» (Jazzland) – awarded the Spellman Prize
- 2003 Come Shine med KORK: «In Concert» (Curling Legs)
- 2002 Come Shine: «Do Do That Voodoo» (Curling Legs) – awarded the Spellman Prize
- 2001 Come Shine: «Come Shine» (Curling Legs)
- 1999 Wibutee: «Newborn Thing» (Jazzland)
- 1998 Tu’ba: «Tu’ba» (Curling Legs)
Publications
- Bedrock 2023
- Bedrock 2023
- Orgelnatt 2023
- Saturns Platz 2022
- Trondheim Voices & Asle Karstad - konsert på Fartein Valen Festivalen 2022
- Konsert: Trondheim Voices og Ståle Storløkken: Adventskonsert (Vår Frue kirke) 2021
- Konsert: Trondheim Voices og Ståle Storløkken: Adventskonsert (Levanger kirke) 2021
- Konsert: Trondheim Voices og Ståle Storløkken: Adventskonsert (Sakshaug kirke) 2021
- Konsert: Trondheim Voices & Asle Karstad "Rooms & Rituals" (Cosmopolite) 2021
- Konsert: Trondheim Voices & Asle Karstad "Rooms & Rituals" (Iliosfestivalen) 2021
