The German vocalist, boundary-pushing improviser, and performer Laura Totenhagen (*1992) approaches her work with a questioning, playful, and subtly confrontational attitude. Emerging from the rigor of an academic background in oboe, piano, and eventually a Master of Music in voice at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln, the artist thrives in technical maximalism, playfulness as research, and holistic performance.

Totenhagen developed her very own way of using her voice in the realms of free improvisation, a capella pieces or conceptual works to channel feminist ideas and personal experience – and the places where the two meet. She draws influence from noises, human interactions, feminist texts and theory and uses movement and visual storytelling alongside technical complexity and humor. 

Rather than narrowing her work into one specific area, Laura Totenhagen allows her practice to spread across three distinct streams: solo a capella performance, vocal effects work or her most recent production RAW, which features 5 duo-collaborators from the US and Germany.
She sees this as a vital breaking-down of musical elements that, in more rigid musical worlds, are pushed together for the sake of it, claustrophobic in their proximity. Through this separation, she gives care, thought and context to each element of her practice, and allows the space to fully explore their potential: rejecting bluster for creative liberation. 

Laura is an alumnus of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and NICA artist development. A masters graduate of the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln, she has worked collaboratively with a host of musicians and improvisers from Germany and beyond, and maintains close, ongoing working relationships with Australian poet and lyricist Ursula Martyn-Ellis. Through these connections and her personal artistic process, Laura’s work is an expression of her experience that seeks to evolve, expand, and question. 

Selection of previous venues, festivals, or series:

Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt Berlin
Berlin Philharmonie
Cologne Philharmonie
Musikverein Vienna
Telekom Forum Bonn
LVR Landesmuseum Bonn
Radialsystem Berlin
Villa Waldberta Feldafing
Zoglau 3
Stadtgarten Cologne
Altes Pfandhaus Cologne
Loft Cologne
Ehemaliges Stummfilmkino Delphi Berlin


A L'ARME! FESTIVAL Berlin
London Jazz Festival
Voc Cologne at Philharmonie Köln 
London Fashion Week (Paula Knorr show)
Deutsches Jazzfestival Frankfurt
Winterjazz Cologne
KLAENG Festival Cologne
Night of Surprise Cologne 
Jazzfest Bonn
Leipziger Jazztage