Tora Augestad is an award-winning Norwegian mezzo-soprano. She has been a champion of 20th and 21st century composition, and is a renowned authority on the music of Kurt Weill, John Cage, Cathy Berberian, and Luciano Berio. She regularly guests in opera houses and in festivals at home and across Europe. Born in Bergen in 1979, Augestad studied classical music and jazz singing in Oslo and Stockholm, devoting herself principally to repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries. While studying in Berlin and Munich, she intensified her involvement in German music before graduating in cabaret singing from the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. In 2004 she founded the ensemble Music for a While, made up of renowned musicians from the Norwegian jazz scene; their repertoire also includes early classical music. For their 2007 debut release, Weill Variations, she received the renowned Lotte Lenya Prize. She began collaborating with Swiss director Christoph Marthaler to realize the premiere of Beat Furrer's music theater work "Wüstenbuch" (Klangforum Wien). Her working relationship with Marthaler continues. In 2010, she and pianist Ivar Anton Waagaard released Over the Piano: American Cabaret Songs. In 2012, Music for a While issued the critically acclaimed Graces That Refrain; it delivered new arrangements and interpretations of classical arias. She is also a founding member of the clarinet, cello, and voice trio BOA. Their 2013 debut release, mOOn Over tOwns, commissioned 14 Norwegian composers to create original works that were three minutes and 30 seconds long -- the average length of pop songs. That year she also performed Berio's "Folk Songs" in the Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal, with the Remix Ensemble conducted by Peter Rundel. A year later, Music for a While's Canticles of Winter was released. In 2015, Augestad was nominated for a Nordic Council Music Prize, one of Scandinavia's most prestigious awards. Other nominees included Anna Sofie von Otter, Apocalyptica, Hamferd, and the Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra. She also became artistic co-director of Norway's famed Hardanger Music Festival. Augestad is the voice of saxophonist/composer Trygve Seim's quartet (whose other members include accordionist Frode Haltli and Svante Henryson). Their first release was Rumi Songs on ECM. Commissioned by the singer in memory of late soprano Anne-Lise Berntsen (who instigated Seim to compose it in 2003), the album showcased Coleman Barks' English translations of the 13th century Sufi poet's works. It was released in September of 2016. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi