Dominique "Sasha" Lazard is an American classical crossover singer.
Lazard was born in New York and grew up in Paris. She attended Bennington College and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, studying opera, but after graduation pursued a more electronic-influenced sound inspired by the local nightclub scene.[1][2] She performed her new music at several clubs in New York, Los Angeles, and Ibiza before recording an album.
In 2002, Lazard released her debut The Myth Of Red, produced by Frank Fitzpatrick, through Higher Octave Music. This album, loosely themed around the myth of Inanna descending to the underworld, appeared on the Billboard charts for both dance music and classical crossover. It features versions of Ave Maria entitled Ode to Innocence, and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. It also features a track entitled Tell My Why, featuring violinist Lili Haydn that was inspired by Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata. The lyrics from The Incubus, (Le Revenant) are written by Charles Pierre Baudelaire. The song Angeli was inspired by Antonio Cesti's Intorno All Idol Mio and has been featured in the Fall 2006 Victoria's Secret campaign, the movie Kissed by an Angel, the movie Modigliani starring Andy García, and was used as the theme song for the Toronto International Film Festival.
2005 saw the release of her second album Moonfall, more acoustic in style than its predecessor.
Lazard has recorded songs for the films Princess Mononoke, Holy Smoke!, Cowboys & Angels, Modigliani, Kettle of Fish and The Lodger.
On 15 May 2004 she was married to film producer Michael Mailer. In 2006, they had a baby boy named Cyrus Mailer.
Sasha teamed up with soprano Shawna Stone and Grammy award-winning producer Peter Asher and producer Frank Fitzpatrick to put their distinctive stamp on original songs, opera favorites (Una furtiva lagrima), classical favorites Panis Angelicus and Stabat Mater (from "The Myth of Red") and contemporary covers from Radiohead ("Street Spirit (Fade Out)") to James Taylor ("Close Your Eyes") to Kansas ("Dust in the Wind") to Sting ("Fields of Gold"). The album, titled Siren, was released on March 6, 2007 on Manhattan Records/EMI.
Her EP Miles Away is available and the full album will be released in 2010.
Sasha Lazard is not a descendant of the Lazard Banking dynasty as cited by several papers.
"The Weill family, which initially took over operations of the Paris branch, maintained their ownership of the branch offices, however, and continued to receive the largest share among any of the other partners. These latter were, in fact, only partners in name: while each of the Lazard partners received a share of the company's profit pool--the amount was later determined from the Paris office--they did not in fact receive any equity in the company. " http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Lazard-LLC-Company-History.html