Sophie Auster

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Sophie Auster has built a career as an American singer/songwriter and actress whose resonant, richly textured pop songs explore themes of introspection, love, and everyday existence. Over time her style shifted from the gentle, lounge-inflected vocal pop that defined her self-titled 2005 debut and the 2012 album Red Weather toward the broader palette of 2019’s Next Time, which blended brisk, animated alt-pop with slower, atmospheric folk passages.

Auster’s engagement with music began at eight, when she started classical vocal training alongside conventional lessons. The following year she made her screen debut in the 1997 romantic drama Washington Square; additional film roles followed before she reached her teens. During adolescence she enrolled at Manhattan’s Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute while also singing jazz in local clubs and venues. Her first album, a collection of soft folk-pop and chanson-tinged songs, appeared in 2005. Recorded with Joshua Camp and Michael Hearst of the art-rock group One Ring Zero, the project had begun as a casual post-study activity until a family friend urged its official release; Naïve Records ultimately issued it.

In the ensuing years Auster balanced acting with music, appearing in the 2007 drama The Inner Life of Martin Frost and the 2011 film Stealing Summers. Songwriting collaborations with British musician and producer Barry Reynolds, whose credits include work with Marianne Faithfull and Rufus Wainwright, commenced in 2007. After completing college in 2010 she assembled her first self-produced EP, Red Weather, which surfaced on Lost Colony Music in late 2012. The next two years were devoted to writing Dogs & Men, issued by Out Loud Music in mid-2015; the album earned critical praise and brought her the grand prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest for the track “Little Bird.” Later in 2015 she began her third album, spending two years shaping the material with producer Tore Johansson, known for prior work with David Kitt and the Cardigans. Next Time reached listeners via BMG in early 2019.