Aurora Nealand grew up in a musical family in Pacifica, California, surrounded by Preservation Hall Jazz Band recordings alongside Stravinsky, Joan Baez, and the Pixies. She went on to earn a music composition degree from the Oberlin Conservatory — where she designed her own major in contemporary music — before moving to Paris to study physical theatre at the renowned Jacques Lecoq School. Returning to the United States, she embarked on a cross-country bicycle trip, gathering audio interviews from rural Americans for a series of compositions she called "American Dreams." That journey ended in New Orleans, which has been her home base since 2005.
She arrived knowing the city's traditional jazz from recordings, but learned it in real time — playing in the streets, sitting in with established bands including the Panorama Jazz Band, VaVaVoom, and the New Orleans Moonshiners. In 2010 she formed The Royal Roses, her own traditional jazz band, and released their debut — a live tribute to Sidney Bechet recorded at Preservation Hall — to national acclaim. Downbeat Magazine named her one of its rising stars on soprano saxophone that same year, a distinction she would earn again on both soprano and clarinet in 2017, 2018, and 2020.
The Royal Roses became one of the most celebrated ensembles on the Frenchmen Street scene, earning the Big Easy Award for Best Traditional Jazz Band in 2015 and 2017, and Nealand herself was voted Best Female Performer in the 2016 Gambit awards. But her ambitions always extended beyond any single band. As The Monocle, she pursues an entirely different world — original compositions, installation work, and experimental sound art. In 2019 she debuted KindHumanKind, a fully staged ninety-minute theatrical production at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, to a sold-out run. She has also fronted Rory Danger and the Danger Dangers, a spoofy rockabilly outfit, and appeared as herself in the HBO series Treme in 2010 and 2011.
Nealand has performed as a featured artist at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Istanbul Jazz Festival, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Big Ears Festival, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. She has worked with Pauline Oliveros, Bill Frisell, Tim Berne, Germaine Bazzle, John Boutté, Johnny Vidacovich, and Tom McDermott, among many others. She is the co-founder of SONO (Sound Observatory New Orleans), a regular musical facilitator with Found Sound Nation, and has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans.
