David Moss

singer, percussionist, composer, performer, teacher, curator, improviser, theater-maker, actor...

NEW: a TAZ, Berlin profile of David (PDF in German) Click Here Read what London critics say about David's performance in the English National Opera’s “Lost Highway“ Click Here

David Moss is at the forefront of new, composed and improvised, contemporary music. He is a pioneer of the solo concert form, and has presented over 1000 solo percussion and voice concerts around the world. First as a percussionist, and now as a singer and unique vocalist, he has collaborated with composers, theater directors, and opera houses throughout Europe, Japan, and the USA. Over the past 2 decades he has become known as one of the most innovative singers and powerful, extreme vocalists in the world.

David Moss has expanded his musical work to include stage/screen performer, theater actor, opera singer, and performance/voice character in experimental avant-garde art works. Because of his 4 & 1/2 octave range and his wide vocabulary of vocal sounds and characters, he is in-demand internationally as a "unique and powerful voice" for a new generation of composers and opera directors.

"Moss sounds like Jim Carrey doing an impression of
Ella Fitzgerald while being eaten by the creature from Alien."

David Moss received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1991 for music/sound composition, and moved to Berlin, Germany in 1991 as a recipient of the prestigious Berlin DAAD artist fellowship. Since 1991 he has sung as soloist and performed with numerous festivals, orchestras, ensembles, and theater companies, culminating in recent performances with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic; as Nino in Luciano Berios' last opera, "Cronaca del Luogo", and as Prince Orlovsky in a scandalous staging of "Die Fledermaus", both at the Salzburg Festival.

David Moss has also performed in:
“Surrogate Cities”, by German composer/director, Heiner Goebbels; Olga Neuwirth's opera version of David Lynch's "Lost Highway"; the Ensemble Modern's Frank Zappa project; Carla Bley's "Escalator Over the Hill"; and had recent premieres in the Spoleto Festival, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Venice Biennale, and the 5th Conference of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in Rome.

In 1999, Moss conceived and co-founded (with Muziektheater Transparant), the Institute for Living Voice, of which he is currently Artistic Director.