Marcela Lucatelli is hailed as one of the most innovative vocalists and composers of her generation. Born in Brazil and based in Denmark, Lucatelli has earned international recognition for her extremely original, sensuous and politically charged performance works. A critic once referred to her works as ‘scores for the limits of body and voice’. Another critic described her inimitable vocal performances as ‘inhuman human noise’. In 2021, Marcela Lucatelli held a seminar at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts on the topic of ‘Decolonizing the Voice of Sublimity’. In simple terms: stripping away the pretense. And, in her work, Lucatelli does exactly that. For Lucatelli, a stage is not merely a place for musical performance, but rather an arena in which the struggle for art, humor, and even life itself takes place. 

Lucatelli’s works are performed by vocal and instrumental elite groups such as the Danish National Symphony Orchestra (DK), Danish National Vocal Ensemble (DK) and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart (DE), alongside some of the most daring ensembles and music collectives in the world, including Apartment House (UK), Bastard Assignments (UK) and Mocrep (US). Her work has been featured at numerous festivals, international venues and events, such as A L’ARME! Festival, AllEars Festival for Improvised Music, ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, Bergen Kunsthall, Borealis Festival, Cafe Oto, CHIII - Festival de Música Criativa, Copenhagen Opera Festival, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, DMA - Danish Music Awards, Donaueschinger Musiktage, DR Koncerthuset, FILE - Electronic Language International Festival, FITEI - Festival Internacional de Teatro de Expressão Ibérica, Godsbanen, Henie Onstad Art Center, HKW Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Impuls Festival, KLANG - Copenhagen Avantgarde Music Festival, Konserthuset Stockholm, Kunsthal Aarhus, Limmitationes Festival, MINU_festival for expanded music, MS Stubnitz, Munch Museum, Nikolaj Kunsthal, Nordic Music Days, Novas Frequências, ON_OFF - Experiências em Live Image, Reykjavik Arts Festival, Sort/Hvid, Southbank Centre, SPOR Festival, Ultima - Oslo Contemporary Music Festival, Waverly Project NYU, WOMEX, Y-E-S FEST, and many more.

Lucatelli was awarded the Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Foundation Talent Prize in Composition 2019 and Pelle Prize 2021, for a composer who dares to cross the norms of their time. She won the Danish Music Awards’ 2023 prize for Vocal Jazz Release of the Year with her album Necromancy, which shows that vocal jazz has many faces - and does not necessarily belong only to the soft end of the spectrum. Lucatelli was also one of the recipients of the Danish Composers’ Society’s New Ways grant in 2023 for artistic research, where she examines how alternative, decolonial compositional strategies can open our perception towards a new, intercultural epistemic experience within new music. Lucatelli has taught and lectured at Copenhagen University, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, The International Center for Knowledge in the Arts and Orpheus Institute, among others. The artist teaches Composition at The Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus and at The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, and is a lecturer in Artistic Practice & Research at the Advanced Postgraduate Programme at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory, also in Copenhagen.

Contact

Marcela Lucatelli
marcelalucatelli (at) gmail (dot) com