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Possessing “an ear for the new and interesting” (The New York Times), Laura Kaminsky frequently addresses critical social and political issues in her work with a distinct musical language that is “full of fire as well as ice, contrasting dissonance and violence with tonal beauty and meditative reflection. It is strong stuff.” (American Record Guide). Her first opera, As One, (2014; co-librettists Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed) is among the most produced contemporary operas since its 2014 premiere with 60+ productions to date across the U.S., Europe, Canada, South America and Australia.
The success of As One has led Kaminsky down a path of multiple opera projects: the As One team has since been commissioned twice—by Houston Grand Opera for Some Light Emerges (2017) and Opera Parallèle/American Opera Projects for Today It Rains (2019). Hometown to the World (libretto: Reed; Santa Fe Opera) premiered in 2021, Finding Wright in 2022 (libretto: Andrea Fellows Fineberg; Dayton Opera). She was co-librettist (with novelist Lisa Moore) and composer for February, commissioned by Newfoundland’s Opera on the Avalon; it premiered there in 2023. Upcoming are Lucidity, with librettist David Cote (On Site Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera in the Heights, Tri-Cities Opera, Opera Ithaca, for a fall 2024 premiere), The Post Office, a chamber opera in poems, with words by Elaine Sexton (Queen City Opera) and Time to Act (libretto by Crystal Manich; dramaturgy/direction by Amy Hutchison; for Pittsburgh Opera, Opera Santa Barbara, Opera Montana and Boston Conservatory of Music at Berklee).
Recent and upcoming solo and chamber music works include a rhapsody for piano solo for Mackenzie Melemed; overflow for the audacious string quintet Sybarite 5; Vanishing Point for the Carpe Diem String Quartet, and Arboreal for the Fry Street Quartet. Since 2012, Kaminsky has worked with the Fry Street Quartet and climate change scientist and activist Dr. Robert Davies in Rising Tide: The Crossroads Project, for which she composed a string quartet woven through an evening-length science performance project that confronts a planet under siege and a future in peril, inspiring audiences to change course. This evocative performance about global sustainability that weaves art and science together through music, prose and imagery has had close to 100 performances internationally and has been made into a 71-minute long film.
Having lived and worked in West Africa and Eastern Europe, Kaminsky’s musical language is eclectic, drawing from many sources of inspiration and deep study. According to The New York Times, ‘innovative sound has been a driving force for Ms. Kaminsky since she was a child. Among her influences (are) Dmitri Shostakovich, Meredith Monk, Stephen Sondheim and Brazilian pop.” Similarly, in prestigious online journal, newmusicbuff, states “Kaminsky’s compositional skills allow her to evoke pretty much whatever emotion she chooses. Her style shows influences and echoes from classical forms, jazz, pop, minimalism all integrated into a largely tonal/post romantic style which easily engages listeners and manages to be highly expressive.”
Awarded the 2016 Polish Gold Cross of Merit (Zloty Krzyż Zasługi RP) by the President of Poland for exemplary public service and humanitarian work, Kaminsky has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, Koussevitzky Music Foundation, Opera America, Chamber Music America, USArtists International, CEC ArtsLink International Partnerships, Likhachev-Russkiy Mir Foundation Cultural Fellowship, Composers Now, and has received six ASCAP-Chamber Music America Awards for Adventuresome Programming.
Head of composition at Purchase College Conservatory of Music, and a professor serving both the composition and opera/voice programs at Boston Conservatory of Music at Berklee, Kaminsky is also a mentor for Seattle Opera’s Creation Lab. She previously was a composer mentor for the Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative and the Juilliard School Blueprint Fellowship program, has led The American Opera Project’s Artistic Advisory Council. She also served as Artistic Director of Symphony Space in New York City, chair of the music department at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, 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 has served on the boards of Opera America, Chamber Music America, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Hermitage Artist Retreat.
