Laura R. Schwartz is a composer, educator, pixel artist, and video projectionist. Her music explores written notation as a facilitator of a performer’s own creativity and self-formation. She blends together elements of traditionally notation scores, verbally notated scores, and illuminated manuscripts situating the participant in a space of their own curiosity and creativity. Laura’s focus on mechanical environmental sounds as musical materials (electric fans, combs, etc.) brings a playful curiosity to the mundane. She regularly performs guided improvisations on amplified electric fans that play both the instrument and the room. Her current pixel art and music project for productivity and relaxation, LADABE Music, can be found on YouTube and Instagram.

Laura is also an active scholar in Music Theory and Musicology. She was a recipient of an Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Research Fellowship for 2018-2019 for her dissertation research on self-formation in works by Jenifer Walshe and Pauline Oliveros. Her primary research areas include: verbally notated scores, technologies of self, listening, voice/self in video game music, and Pauline Oliveros. She attended the University of California, Davis (B.A. in Music, 2013), Illinois State University (M.M. in Composition, 2015), and the University of Pittsburgh (Ph.D. in Music Composition and Theory, 2019). Additionally, Laura has taken the first course towards a certificate in Deep Listening from The Center for Deep Listening.

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Laura has worked with ensembles and performers including: Camellia Symphony Orchestra, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, line upon line percussion, Transient Canvas, Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, Arditti quartet, ensemble linea, New Morris code, Ekmeles, wild Up, Durward Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, the Living Earth Show, Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra, University of Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and How things are made.

Her collaborations with performers include: Denise Rivera—voice, Yaz Lancaster—violin, Anna Elder—voice, Jamie Monck—guitar, Niki Johnson—percussion, Tony Arnold—voice, Robert Black—double bass, Evangeline Werger—piano, Sarah Pyle—flute(s), and Aaron Hydns—tuba.

As a composer, Laura’s music has been performed during the Winter Composition festival: line upon line percussion (2021), the Beyond 2020: Microtonal Music Festival (2020), the Composer’s Conference (2019), the Montréal Contemporary Music Lab (2019), the SCI National Conference/Robb Composers’ Symposium (2019), New Music on the Point (2018), the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet Composers Initiative (2018), the UC Davis Revision/(s) Festival (2018), the Yarn/Wire Institute (2016), the Nief Norf festival (2015), the Oregon Symposium of Graduate Musicians (2015), and the Oregon Bach Festival Composer’s Symposium (2014).

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Beyond composition, Laura is an active conference organizer, concert producer, and artistic director. She has worked as a Producer of the Beyond 2020: Microtonal Music Festival (Pittsburgh, PA, 2020), Head of Operations for She Scores 2020 Festival (Pittsburgh, PA, 2020), as an artistic director in “Meal 1” Presented by Dinner Party Ensemble (Pittsburgh, PA, 2019), as Media Chair and Conference Organizer of Music and Erotics (Pittsburgh, PA, 2019), as a Logistics Coordinator and Event Producer for Race and Empire in Music History 1500-1800 Conference (Pittsburgh, PA, 2018), as a Production Assistant Manager with the Microtonal Music Festival (Pittsburgh, PA, 2018), as an artistic director of “New Music for Flute and Clarinet” (Davis, CA, 2017), as an intern in Education and Live streaming with the Ojai Music Festival (Ojai, CA, 2017), as chair of the abstract committee for Music and Power (Pittsburgh, PA 2017),   as an artistic director of “New Works for Voice” (Normal, IL, 2015), and as an artistic director of “Fictions” (Normal, IL, 2015).

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