Laura Elise Schwendinger's music has been called "…music of considerable power" in the San Francisco Chronicle, as "fanciful" by Anthony Tomassini of the New York Times, as having " an impressive luster and transparency", poignant…and "revel(ing) in sinewy counterpoint"… in the Washington Post, as "delectable" and "especially captivating" in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Richard Buell of the Boston Globe wrote "This was shrewd composing, the genuine article. Onto the season's best list it goes", "an unmistakable lyric intensity… a fine piece… worthy of the Arditti's attention", and " Schwendinger’s Magic Carpet Music like the composer's other music, rejoices in edge and has a force that has its way...Here is a composer with distinct voice." Mark Kanny of the Pittsburgh Tribune wrote "The absence of any visual entertainment for Schwendinger’s Buenos Aires focused attention on the musical excellence of her hard-driving quartet for flute, bass clarinet, violin and cello. She creates fresh and compelling lines that are brought together to a powerful climax."
Recent performances include the premiere of her String Quartet by The Arditti String Quartet (1/O3), Celestial City, a Koussevitzky Foundation Commission by Spectrum Concerts of Berlin at the Kammermusiksaal der Berlin Philharmonie(1/O3), Fable by Collage New Music at Harvard University (2/O3), Magic Carpet Music by Dinosaur Annex in Boston(5/O3) and Jenny Lin on a WMFT Radio broadcast, Dame Myra Hess Concert(4/O3) and Galapagos Art Space, Rapture, by Jens Peter Maintz, the Deutsches Symphony Orchestra Akademie-konzerte(4/O3), Buenos Aires by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble(8/O3) and a Fromm Commission, Nonet, for The Chicago Chamber Musicians which will be premiered in June 2OO4, on WMFT radio.
She has also been performed by Dawn Upshaw and Gilbert Kalish, at venues including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Theatre Du Chatelet in Paris, the National Arts Center in Canada and at the Tanglewood and Ojai Music Festivals. Her Songs of Heaven and Earth, and Magic Carpet Music for the Theater Chamber Players were premiered at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. She has also been performed by the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the New York Camerata, ALEA III, the New England String Ensemble, the New Millennium Ensemble, the Northwestern University New Music Ensemble, Vancouver New Music, and the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society at Merkin Hall and Miller Theater in New York. In April of 2OO1, the "Music For A While" series at The Music Institute of Chicago, presented an entire concert of her works. She has had residencies at The Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center, the American Academy in Berlin, the Bogliasco Foundation's Liguria Center, MacDowell(5), Yaddo, and Millay Colonies, Atlantic Center for the Arts(3), and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts(4).
Her honors include commissions from The Koussevitzky(2OO1) and Fromm Foundations(1999), the Harvard Musical Association(1999), the American Academy in Berlin Prize Fellowship(1999), the first composer to be awarded), a Bunting Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2OO2), a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1993), a Judge's Commendation from the Barlow Endowment(1995), the Norton Stevens fellowship from MacDowell Colony (1994), two Meet the Composer Grants(1997,1998), an American Composers Forum Grant and First Prize of the 1995 ALEA III International Composition Competition (the first American winner in over a decade), an Illinois Arts Council grant, and grants from the University of Illinois (1999,2OOO), for the creation of a new concert work and in support of a recording project with the Chicago Chamber Musicians.
Ms. Schwendinger received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She is an Assistant Prof. of Music at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has also been on faculty at the Music Department of the University of California, Santa Cruz, Smith College and the San Francisco Conservatory. Her Chamber Concerto is available on the Capstone label her Chanson Innocentes is published by Hildegard Publishing and available through Theodore Presser.
For more information, visit their website: http://www.lauraschwendinger.com/
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