Critically Acclaimed Lower East Side Interdisciplinary Artist/Musician/Author/Educator
Legere is an INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTIST
working across art forms in the realm of ideas. She makes big art, rideable sculpture, haptic interfaces, and multimedia performance art spectacles.
As President of the Foundation for New American Art Phoebe Legere and her team of volunteer artist educators are the guiding lights behind free Afterschool Programs.
Phoebe Legere is known for her legendary social justice performance art and children's educational charity. Her community artworks examine society's duty to women, children, minorities and low-income communities.
Ms. Legere, a poet and playwright, was a protege of Hunter Thompson and Terry Southern.
She was a close friend of Allen Ginsburg, Jim Carroll and John Ashbery.
Her "sung poetry" was published this season in the Abenaki Journal "Voices of the Dawnland."
Lower East Side Interdisciplinary Artist, Performance Artist, Writer and Musician Phoebe Legere studied jazz with John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet, and graduated from Vassar College where she studied Performance Art, Music and the Philosophy of Art.
Legere is a Master Musician. She studied music composition with Morton Subotnick, and jazz arranging with Ira Newborn and Rick Shemaria.
"My most important music education came from improvising at the Jam Sessions and Loft Jazz Sessions of Harlem and the Lower East Side of New York."
This highly regarded "master songwriter and storyteller" is writing, painting and composing during our COVID 19 crisis. She has been teaching children from low-income communities ONLINE. To support her art, music and educational initiatives please consider becoming a PATREON patron.
All proceeds from Legere's art and music go to the Foundation for New American Art. Legere gifts 100% of her income and grant stipends to her charity. Can you give a dollar to nurture the visionary artists of tomorrow?
As a teenager, Legere was signed to Epic Records as a songwriter. She opened for David Bowie on his National Tour in 1991. She led highly influential downtown bands, such as her all-girl experimental punk band Monad, the riot grrl band 4 Nurses of the Apocalypse, and the 9-piece jazz band Swingalicious.
Legere is an internationally recognized East Village icon, musician, playwright and artist.
Press Reviews
The New York Times raved: “Legere plays the piano with enormous authority in a style that encompasses Chopin, blues, ragtime, bebop and beyond, and she brings to her vocal delivery a four octave range, and an extraordinary palette of tonal color and meticulous phrasing.” This “multi-keyboard, vocal wizard” (CBS) has been compared to:
Go to Phoebelegereart.com to download "I WEAR MY MASK 2020 & watch the video! "
“the female Beethoven” (Paper Magazine)
“sounds like Edith Piaf” (Proctor Lippincott, New York Times)
“echoes of Yma Sumac and Maria Callas” (Stephen Holden, New York Times)
“the female Frank Zappa” (Billboard)
“reminds me of Dorothy Donegan” (John Wilson, NY Times)
“as witty as Dorothy Parker” (Ruddy Cheeks, The Phoenix)
“plays like Jerry Lee Lewis” (Proctor Lippincott, NY Times)
“the female Bobby Short” (LIz Smith, NY Daily News)
“Mick Jagger with an accordion” (Washington Post)
"Phoebe Legere is an important American playwright." -Village Preservation Society
Contact Legere to learn more about her and where she’ll be performing next.
