Mary's Experience

New York City-based art pop singer and songwriter Mary Alouette (also known as Alarke) is an uncommon display of passion and innovation at every turn. Fans describe her as “the alternative Björk” and compare her also to Lorde, Grimes, and Joanna Newsom. In a sea of pop, she stands out with her compelling twist of experiences as an international opera singer turned a Gypsy jazz singer mesmerizing audiences from the top of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City to Gypsy caravans in Samois sur Seine, France, to working as an audio engineer to pop artists in New York City, to performing her own original music at the Kennedy Center and Blues Alley in Washington D.C. Most recently, Alouette served as the music director for a production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest at the Ritsona Refugee Camp in Greece, alongside a cast and crew of established Broadway, film, and t.v. talent and crew with the Campfire Project under the humanitarian aid organization I Am You. Before that, she created a month-long artist retreat in Havana, Cuba to study & compose music, paint, write, and record her fifth original album, Cuba Diaries. There, she also collaborated on an album with Cuban hip hop artists and performed at Havana’s premier cultural venue, Fabrica de Arte. Her artistry and songwriting workshops have won her an Artist-in-Residence position at the Music Center at Strathmore in 2012, a songwriting workshop platform with Washington Performing Arts (2015-2016), and a SU-CASA Artist-in-Residence position 2017 with the Brooklyn Arts Council. She is a graduate of the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where she studied classical voice and digital composition. Her debut self-released EP Midas (2012) received critical acclaim, landing her New Artist of the Year and Best Debut Album with the Washington Area Music Association. Her song “O, Be I Your Bluebird” placed as a finalist in the Mid-Atlantic Songwriting Competition. The Lark (EP), released in 2013, won her the Grand Prize in the Professional Artist Support System Songwriting Competition with the Washington Area Music Association for her song, “Lionheart.” 2016 was very successful year for Mary Alouette as she released her third album, Grace (under the name Alarke), that has influences of electronic pop, classical music, and Gypsy jazz. She also released a fourth EP, a tropical electronic collaborative project called Elkin + Alarke with producer Elkin Pautt. Elkin + Alarke combines Colombian and world music flavors with electronic dance beats reminiscent of the band Little Dragon. Mary Alouette has performed at venues including the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Plaza; the Kennedy Center for her own original music, as well as with the Washington Opera, the National Symphony Orchestra; Blues Alley; the U.S. National Mall 4th of July Celebration, Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic, and has composed two live film scores at Nitehawk Cinema in New York City. She sang the National Anthem for the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals Major League Baseball teams and DC United Major League Soccer team over two dozen times. Her opera singing brought her to perform at American Institute for Musical Studies in Austria and the Schlern International Music Festival in Italy, and her Gypsy jazz singing led her to perform with Stochelo Rosenberg and Stephane Wrembel. She also featured as a lead voiceover role for the Wii video game “Boogie Superstar” by Electronic Arts (EA Games). Past venues include the Rainbow Room at the top of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the SixtyFive Bar at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, CMJ, Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival, Artisphere, Babycastles, Blues Alley, Cherry Blast Festival, Glasslands, Grey Lady, Manhattan Inn, Le Quecumbar, Rockwood, Sofar Sounds, the Music Center and the Mansion at Strathmore, & live film scoring at Nitehawk Cinema. You can also find Alarke at www.maryalouette.com and her teaching programs at www.setyourlifetomusic.com.