Laura Kaminsky

Laura Kaminsky, “one of the top 35 female composers in classical music” (The Washington Post), frequently addresses issues including sustainability, war, and human rights in her work. “Full of fire as well as ice, (she writes) in an idiom that contrasts dissonance and violence with tonal beauty and meditative reflection. It is strong stuff.” (American Record Guide) With co-librettists Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed she has created the most widely-produced contemporary opera in the U.S., As One (2014), Some Light Emerges (Houston Grand Opera 2017), and the forthcoming Today It Rains (Opera Parallèle/American Opera Projects 2019). Upcoming: a Piano Quintet for Ursula Oppens and the Cassatt String Quartet; and with Reed, Postville, inspired by the unprecedented and devastating immigration raid there in 2008, for a consortium led by Santa Fe and San Francisco Operas. Head of composition at the Conservatory of Music/SUNY Purchase, she is composer-in-residence at American Opera Projects.

Laura Kaminsky, “one of the top 35 female composers in classical music” (The Washington Post), frequently addresses issues including sustainability, war, and human rights in her work. She possesses “an ear for the new and interesting” (The New York Times) and “her music is full of fire as well as ice, written in an idiom that contrasts dissonance and violence with tonal beauty and meditative reflection. It is strong stuff.” (American Record Guide). Social and political themes are common in her work, as is an abiding respect for and connection to the natural world.

With co-librettists Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed she created As One which debuted in 2014 at BAM to unanimously positive reviews, and is now the most widely-produced contemporary opera in the U.S., with over two dozen different productions to its credit. “As One is a piece that haunts and challenges its audience with questions about identity, authenticity, compassion, and the human desire for self-love and peace” (Opera News). The As One team has since been commissioned twice — by Houston Grand Opera for Some Light Emerges, that premiered in 2017, and by San Francisco’s Opera Parallèle and New York’s American Opera Projects for Today It Rains, inspired by a real event in the life of Georgia O’Keeffe, for 2019. Other upcoming commissions include a Piano Quintet for Ursula Oppens and the Cassatt String Quartet and a new opera with Reed, Postville, inspired by the unprecedented and devastating immigration raid there in 2008, commissioned for the Opera For All Voices Consortium, led by Santa Fe and San Francisco Operas, for a 2020 premiere in San Francisco.

Kaminsky has received grants, awards and fellowships from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts, Koussevitzky Music Foundation, Opera America, Chamber Music America, BAM/The Kennedy Center De Vos Institute, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund, Virgil Thomson Foundation, Newburgh Institute for the Arts, Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music, American Music Center, USArtists International, CEC ArtsLink International Partnerships, Likhachev-Russkiy Mir Foundation Cultural Fellowship, Kenan Institute for the Arts, Artist Trust, New York State Council on the Arts, Bronx Arts Council, Arts Westchester, North Carolina Arts Council, Seattle Arts Commission, and Meet the Composer. She has received six ASCAP-Chamber Music America Awards for Adventuresome Programming, a citation from the Office of the President of the Borough of Manhattan, the 2016 Polish Gold Cross of Merit (Zloty Krzyż Zasługi RP), a decoration awarded by the President of Poland for exemplary public service or humanitarian work, as well as the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage 2010 Chopin Award. She has been a fellow at the Hermitage Artist Retreat Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Centrum Foundation, Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, and Millay Colony for the Arts, and, in 2016, the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France.

Currently composer-in-residence at American Opera Projects, Kaminsky is a member of the faculty in the School of the Arts/Conservatory of Music at Purchase College/SUNY, where she is head of the composition department, and where she served as dean from 2004–2008; she was also Artistic Director of Symphony Space in New York City until 2014. Previously she was chair of the music department at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Artistic Director of the European Mozart Academy in Poland, and visiting faculty at the National Academy of Music in Ghana. In New York she held the positions of Director of Music and Theatre Programs at The New School, Artistic Director of Town Hall, and Associate Director of Humanities at the 92nd Street Y.

Kaminsky’s scores are available for distribution through Bill Holab Music. Her music is heard on the Albany, Bridge, CRI, Capstone, Mode, and MSR labels. A complete list of available recordings can be viewed at the Buy CDs page. Kaminsky is a BMI composer.

Laura Kaminsky, “one of the top 35 female composers in classical music” (The Washington Post), frequently addresses issues including sustainability, war, and human rights in her work. She possesses “an ear for the new and interesting” (The New York Times) and “her music is full of fire as well as ice, written in an idiom that contrasts dissonance and violence with tonal beauty and meditative reflection. It is strong stuff.” (American Record Guide). Social and political themes are common in her work, as is an abiding respect for and connection to the natural world.

With co-librettists Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed she created As One which debuted in 2014 at BAM to unanimously positive reviews, and is now the most widely-produced contemporary opera in the U.S., with over two dozen different productions to its credit. “As One is a piece that haunts and challenges its audience with questions about identity, authenticity, compassion, and the human desire for self-love and peace” (Opera News). The As One team has since been commissioned twice — by Houston Grand Opera for Some Light Emerges, that premiered in 2017, and by San Francisco’s Opera Parallèle and New York’s American Opera Projects for Today It Rains, inspired by a real event in the life of Georgia O’Keeffe, for 2019. Other upcoming commissions include a Piano Quintet for Ursula Oppens and the Cassatt String Quartet and a new opera with Reed, Postville, inspired by the unprecedented and devastating immigration raid there in 2008, commissioned for the Opera For All Voices Consortium, led by Santa Fe and San Francisco Operas, for a 2020 premiere in San Francisco.

Kaminsky has received grants, awards and fellowships from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts, Koussevitzky Music Foundation, Opera America, Chamber Music America, BAM/The Kennedy Center De Vos Institute, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund, Virgil Thomson Foundation, Newburgh Institute for the Arts, Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music, American Music Center, USArtists International, CEC ArtsLink International Partnerships, Likhachev-Russkiy Mir Foundation Cultural Fellowship, Kenan Institute for the Arts, Artist Trust, New York State Council on the Arts, Bronx Arts Council, Arts Westchester, North Carolina Arts Council, Seattle Arts Commission, and Meet the Composer. She has received six ASCAP-Chamber Music America Awards for Adventuresome Programming, a citation from the Office of the President of the Borough of Manhattan, the 2016 Polish Gold Cross of Merit (Zloty Krzyż Zasługi RP), a decoration awarded by the President of Poland for exemplary public service or humanitarian work, as well as the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage 2010 Chopin Award. She has been a fellow at the Hermitage Artist Retreat Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Centrum Foundation, Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, and Millay Colony for the Arts, and, in 2016, the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France.

Kaminsky’s works are frequently performed across the U.S. and abroad. Her music has been presented in New York at BAM, Miller Theater, Bargemusic, Subculture, Merkin Concert Hall, Tenri Cultural Center, Weill Recital Hall, Symphony Space, Skirball Center, Greenwich House, Here Arts Center, Robert Miller Gallery, and the 92nd Street Y, among other venues. Internationally, she has been featured at Wigmore Hall and King’s Place (London); Glinka Hall, Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory of Music, and Dostoevsky Museum (Russia); Fundacion Juan March (Madrid); Naregatsi Art Institute and Philharmonic Hall (Yerevan, Armenia); Forum of Contemporary Music Leipzig (Germany), Bratislava Conservatory of Music (Slovakia); Vernissage Salzburg (Austria); and the American Embassy in Ghana among others. She has been a featured composer at Boston, Oberlin, Purchase and Shanghai Conservatories; North Carolina School of the Arts; Mannes College of Music; Cornish College of the Arts; CalArts; Tisch School of the Arts/NYU; Bard, Hunter, St. Olaf’s, Doane, Earlham, Augustana, and Sarah Lawrence Colleges; Universities of Puerto Rico, Minnesota, North Carolina, Utah, Washington, Pittsburgh, and Puget Sound; the National Academies of Music of Armenia, Ghana and Slovakia; at the Wolfson Center for National Affairs at the New School; Vernon Center for International Affairs at New York University; and at festivals including the Seattle Chamber Music Festival; Soundfest Summer Institute and Festival (Cape Cod); Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival (VT); Seal Bay Chamber Music Festival and Atlantic Music Festival (ME); Synthesis International Festival (Skopje, Macedonia); International Festival of Women Composers (São Paulo, Brazil); and Casalmaggiore International Music Festival (Italy); among others.

Currently composer-in-residence at American Opera Projects, Kaminsky is a member of the faculty in the School of the Arts/Conservatory of Music at Purchase College/SUNY, where she is head of the composition department, and where she served as dean from 2004–2008; she was also Artistic Director of Symphony Space in New York City until 2014. Previously she was chair of the music department at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Artistic Director of the European Mozart Academy in Poland, and visiting faculty at the National Academy of Music in Ghana. In New York she held the positions of Director of Music and Theatre Programs at The New School, Artistic Director of Town Hall, and Associate Director of Humanities at the 92nd Street Y.

She currently serves as a member of the board of trustees of the Hermitage Artist Retreat (Florida), and is on the National Advisory Board of Cornish College of the Arts (Seattle, WA). She has served six-year terms as a board member of both Chamber Music America and the American Music Center, and served on the Artistic Advisory Council of the New York Foundation for the Arts. She has been as a panelist and/or adjudicator for the NEA, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Chamber Music America, Opera America, New England Foundation for the Arts, CEC ArtsLink, Meet The Composer, American Music Center, Newmusic USA, Cary Trust, Creative Capital, USArtists International, and other organizations.

A native New Yorker, Kaminsky graduated from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art, and then received her bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Oberlin College, and her master’s degree from the City College of New York/CUNY, where she was a Tuch Foundation Fellow and studied with Mario Davidovsky.
She has been profiled at newmusicbox.org and was the subject of an article in the New York Times, Art Meets Environmental Activism in the Crossroads Project.

Kaminsky’s scores are available for distribution through Bill Holab Music. Her music is heard on the Albany, Bridge, CRI, Capstone, Mode, and MSR labels. A complete list of available recordings can be viewed at the Buy CDs page. Kaminsky is a BMI composer.

For Composing | For Presenting/Producing

For Composing:

• William and Flora Hewlett Foundation 50 Arts Commissions (for Today It Rains; Opera Parallèle), 2017
• Opera For All Voices Commissioning Grant (for Postville; Santa Fe and San Francisco Operas, leading a consortium including Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Minnesota Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Sarasota Opera, and Seattle Opera), 2017
• Opera America Commissioning Grant (for Today It Rains; Opera Parallèle), 2017
• Opera America Commissioning Grant (for Some Light Emerges; Houston Grand Opera), 2016
• BRIO (Bronx Arts Council Artist Award), 2016
• Camargo Foundation Fellowship (Cassis, France), 2016
• Opera America Development Grant (for Today It Rains), 2015
• 50 for 50 Arts Westchester Artist Award, 2015
• Nominated for an American Academy of Arts and Letters Music Award, 2015
• UUP Faculty Support Award, 2015
• Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (As One), 2014
• National Endowment for the Arts (As One), 2014
• Opera America Discovery Grant (As One), 2014
• Purchase College Faculty Development Award, 2014
• BRIO (Bronx Arts Council Artist Award), 2014
• BAM/Kennedy Center DeVos Institute Fellowship Award (for As One), 2013
• Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (Rising Tide; Fry Street Quartet), 2013
• New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship: Commission, 2013
• Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency Fellowship, 2012
• Hermitage Artist Retreat Center Residency Fellowship, 2012-2014
• Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (Piano Concerto for Ursula Oppens and the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic), 2011
• Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress Commissioning Award, 2011
• Centrum Artist Residency Fellowship, Port Townsend, WA, 2011
• Meet the Composer Met Life Creative Connections Residency Grant, 2011
• Faculty Support Award, Purchase College, 2011
• Seal Bay Chamber Music Festival Composer-in-Residence Fellowship, 2011
• Meet the Composer Met Life Creative Connections Residency Grant, 2010
• Musical Chairs Chamber Ensemble Residency, Staten Island, NY, 2010-2011
• Lucy Moses School of Music Chamber Music Commission, 2010-11
• Dorland Mountain Artists Colony Residency Fellowship, 2010
• New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artists Commission, 2010
• Hermitage Artist Retreat Center Residency Fellowship, 2009-2011
• Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency Fellowship, 2009-2010
• Copying Assistance Program Grant/American Music Center, 2009
• Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency Fellowship, 2009
• Meet the Composer Met Life Creative Connections Residency Grant, 2009
• Kenan Institute for the Arts Commission, 2009
• Lucy Moses School of Music, Kaufmann Cultural Center and Women’s Work Music Co-Commission, 2008
• Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (“Terra Terribilis: Concerto for Three Percussionists and Orchestra”), 2008
• Centrum Artist Residency Fellowship, Port Townsend, WA, 2008
• Lucy Moses School of Music Chamber Music Commission, 2007-2008
• Purchase College Professional Development Award, 2007
• Centrum Artist Residency Fellowship, Port Townsend, WA, 2007
• Lucy Moses School of Music Chamber Music Commission, 2006-2007
• Purchase College Professional Development Award, 2007
• Centrum Artist Residency Fellowship, Port Townsend, WA, 2007
• Lucy Moses School of Music Chamber Music Commission, 2006-2007
• Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency Fellowship, 2006
• CEC ArtsLink Projects Award, 2006
• National Endowment for the Arts commission, 2005
• North Carolina Arts Council Grant, 2004
• Centrum Artist Residency Fellowship, Port Townsend, WA, 2004
• Jordan Foundation Commissioning Grant, 2003
• Icicle Creek Music Center Visiting Composer Residency, Leavenworth, WA, 2003
• Cornish College of the Arts Professional Development Award, 1999-2004
• Artist Trust GAP Grant, 2002
• Jory Copying Assistance Program Grant/American Music Center, 2001
• American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters: nominated for composer award (Joan Tower), 2001
• Seattle Arts Commission Performing Artists Award, 2001
• King County Arts Council Special Projects Grant [through Odeon String Quartet], 2001
• Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency Fellowship, 1999
• Serage Foundation Artist Grant, 1998
• National Endowment for the Arts Recording Grant [through Musicians Accord], 1995
• Meet the Composer Grants, 1983-1997; 1999, 2000; 2002
• Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency Fellowship, 1992
• Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency Fellowship, 1991
• National Flute Association, Finalist, Newly Published Works Competition, 1991
• Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency Fellowship, 1990
• Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency Fellowship, 1989
• New York State Council on the Arts Recording Grant, 1987
• Millay Colony for the Arts Residency Fellowship, 1986
• Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency Fellowship, 1985
• Millay Colony for the Arts Residency Fellowship, 1984
• American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters: nominated for composer award (Miriam Gideon), 1986
• Panopticon/New York Women Composers Competition, 1986
• Composers’ Forum: New Music/New Composers Competition, 1985
• American Society for Jewish Music Competition, 1985
• American Women Composers National Competition, 1984
• Tuch Foundation Fellowship, 1978-80

For Presenting/Producing:

• Polish Gold Cross of Merit (Zloty Krzyż Zasługi RP), awarded by the President of Poland for exemplary public service or humanitarian work, 2015
• Virgil Thomson Foundation Grant to support “Virgil Thomson and Friends at the Chelsea Hotel,” 2014
• ASCAP/Chamber Music America Adventurous Programming Award, 2013
• Peter Jay Sharp Foundation Grant to support “Harlem Resonance Festival, 2013
• AMEX Foundation Grant to produce “John Cage: How to Get Started,” 2012
• Florence Gould Foundation Grant to support “Gertrude’s Paris” Festival, 2012
• ASCAP/Chamber Music America Adventurous Programming Award, 2011
• Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage 2010 Chopin Award
• CEC ArtsLink Award to support Wall to Wall Behind the Wall: Music of the Soviet Era, 2010
• Trust for Mutual Understanding Grant to support Wall to Wall Behind the Wall: Music of the Soviet Era, 2010
• Likhachev/Russkiy Mir Foundation Cultural Fellowship to St. Petersburg, Russia, 2009
• NEA American Masterpieces for “The 1939 Project: American Arts at a Turning Point” at Symphony Space, 2008-09
• Wachovia Foundation for “Africa and the African Diaspora: Traditions, Revolutions and Innovations,” 2007-08
• Mellon Foundation for “Africa and the African Diaspora: Traditions, Revolutions and Innovations” New York Festival and Symposum, 2007-2008
• New York State Music Fund for “New Latin Music for New Audiences,” a part of “Africa and the African Diaspora: Traditions, Revolutions and Innovations,” 2006-2008
• Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventuresome Programming as Artistic Director of the Cornish Music Series, 2003
• Aaron Copland Fund for Music Supplemental Program Grants for “The Cornish Music Series” in 2003/04, 2002/03 and “Copland & Weill: A Centenary Celebration” in 2000
• Aaron Copland Fund for Music Performing Ensembles Grants for Musicians Accord, 1990-2002
• Jack Straw Productions Artist Support Grant as Director of Musicians Accord to record “The Brazil Project,” 2000
• Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventuresome Programming as Artistic Director of The Town Hall, NYC, First Prize, 1991
• Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventuresome Programming as Artistic Director of The Town Hall, NYC, First Prize, 1990
• Citation from the Office of the Manhattan Borough President for Service to New York as Artistic Director of The Town Hall, 1989
• Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventuresome Programming as Artistic Director of The Town Hall, Second Prize, 1989