Voice: Technique & Lyric Interpretation

Other clinicians to be announced soon!

LAUREL MASSE' is a professional singer and educator most known for her "creamy" Jazz vocals and soaring four octave vocal range.  She began her career in the 70's with the award-winning vocal group, Manhattan Transfer, with whom she recorded four albums that earned gold and platinum certification.  Massé achieved international reknown with the group, touring around the globe and appearing on numerous television shows including their own, The Manhattan Transfer Show, which had a short run on CBS the Summer of 1975, only one year after the release of their first album.

In the midst of the early fame The Manhattan Transfer enjoyed, a near-fatal car accident in 1978 precipitated her departure from the group, a long-recovery from her injuries, some soul-searching and the launch of her tremendous solo career in Chicago.  

An incredible, adaptable musician, Massé's musical work encompasses a variety of genres - Jazz, Folk, Bluegrass, Blues, Pop, Standards, Hymns and Spirituals. She has worked with artists such as Barry Manilow, Tim Curry and Carol Hall, and reunited in 2009 with Manhattan Transfer's Janis Siegel to record the critically acclaimed album That Ol' Mercer Magic, a compilation of tunes by Johnny Mercer, with Lauren Kinhan of New York Voices.  In 2012, She collaborated with pianist/arranger Tex Arnold (2018 Songbook South Clinician) to produce her album,  Once In A Million Moons.  She is showcased in the feature film Camilla Dickinson (Kairos Productions) singing one of her own compositions, "The Heavens Tonight", co-written with Tex Arnold and Larry Kerchner.

Transcending the music scene, she established herself as an actor in New York with Project Rushmore's readings of Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart (Lenny) and Shakespear's King Lear (Cordelia).

She has lectured and taught at Yale, Dartmouth and The Royal Academy of Music (UK).  She is a sought after adjudicator and clinician for high school and college choir festivals and has taught at the Ashokan Music and Dance Camp since 1997.

Ms. Massé received the MAC Lifetime Achievement Award in in 2004 which was followed with in 2009 with being awarded Bistro Best Jazz Vocalist.  She is also a member of ASCAP and SAG-AFTRA.

For more information, visit her website: www.laurelmasse.com