Lori Laitman is one of America's most prolific and widely performed composers of vocal music. She has composed two operas, an oratorio, choral works and over 200 songs, setting the words of classical and contemporary poets, among them the lost voices of poets who perished in the Holocaust. The Journal of Singing writes: "It is difficult to think of anyone before the public today who equals her exceptional gifts for embracing a poetic text and giving it new and deeper life through music."
Laitman was born in 1955 in Long Beach, New York. She graduated magna cum laude with honors in music from Yale College and received her M.M. from the Yale School of Music. Her principal composition teachers were Jonathan Kramer and Frank Lewin. Laitman's initial focus was composing music for film and theatre, and in 1980 she wrote the score for The Taming of The Shrew for The Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C. Since 1991, however, she has composed almost exclusively for the voice.
Laitman’s full-length opera, The Scarlet Letter, to a new libretto of the Hawthorne classic by poet David Mason, was commissioned and performed by the University of Central Arkansas in 2008 to critical acclaim. The opera will have its professional world premiere at Opera Colorado in May 2013, with soprano Elizabeth Futral as Hester Prynne and tenor James Valenti as Arthur Dimmesdale. Beth Greenberg will direct. Cleveland Opera premiered Laitman’s one-act opera Come to Me in Dreams in 2004, with baritone Sanford Sylvan. Her oratorio, Vedem, a commission by Music of Remembrance (another collaboration with poet David Mason), saw its world premiere in May 2010 in Seattle, WA. Laitman spoke about Vedem, a tribute to the boys of the Terezin Concentration Camp, at Yale’s Institute for Sacred Music in September 2010. Naxos released a CD of the work in the spring of 2011, in conjunction with the release of John Sharify’s documentary, "The Boys of Terezin." Laitman and Mason have already begun their next collaboration, a new opera based on Ludlow, Mason’s award-winning epic verse novel about the 1914 Colorado mining town disaster. Ludlow will be workshopped the summer of 2012 at The University of Colorado.
Laitman's music continues to gain recognition worldwide. She was recently a Featured Composer on Thomas Hampson's new online resource Song of America, and SongFest, in Malibu, CA, presented a retrospective concert of her music, featuring the premiere of The Act (to a poem by H.L. Hix), commissioned by The Sorel Organization. In October 2010 she was the guest of the International Conservatory Week Festival at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Russia, where she conducted a master class and presented performances of her music. In November 2011, Laitman will present another master class at The University of Southern California. In December 2011, The Washington Master Chorale will premiere The Earth and I — a new choral cycle based on three Dickinson poems. In March 2012, The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, will present a concert of Laitman's music as part of the Shenson Chamber Music Series. Baritone Wolfgang Holzmair and cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton will premiere Laitman's Todesfuge (based on the Celan poem) at Wigmore Hall in London in July 2012.
Prior commissions include The Seed of Dream — settings of Vilna Ghetto survivor Abraham Sutzkever. Commissioned in 2005 by Mina Miller and Music of Remembrance (Seattle, WA), this piece was recorded and released on the Naxos label in April 2008. The European premiere took place in Vilnius, Lithuania by Norwegian baritone Stein Skjervold, and in February 2009, baritone Wolfgang Holzmair sang the work in his native Austria. In 2006 The Eastman School of Music, in conjunction with Syracuse University, commissioned Laitman to set the poetry of Margaret Atwood for soprano Eileen Strempel and pianist Sylvie Beaudette. The resulting cycle, Orange Afternoon Lover, premiered at The Chautauqua Institute in the summer of 2006. In 2004, 2005 and 2008, The West Chester University Poetry Conference commissioned and performed settings of poets David Mason, Annie Finch, Dana Gioia and Richard Wilbur. In 2002 Orchestra New England, conducted by James Sinclair, premiered two newly orchestrated songs.
In the US, her music has been performed at Jordan Hall and The Gardner Museum (Massachusetts); Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Hall, and Alice Tully Hall (NY); Benaroya Hall and The Frye Art Museum (Washington); Shriver Hall and Strathmore Hall (Maryland); The Cleveland Institute of Art and The Ohio Theatre (Ohio); The Skylight Opera Theatre (Wisconsin); The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, The Corcoran Gallery, The Phillips Collection, The Cosmos Club, Library of Congress, and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (D.C.).
Albany Records released her debut CD, Mystery— The Songs of Lori Laitman in August 2000, and her second CD, Dreaming, in May 2003. Her third disc, Becoming a Redwood, was released in October 2006. Her latest solo CD, Within These Spaces (2009), is receiving exceptional praise: “One hundred years hence, when critics look back at the art songs of our era, there will be many fine composers to laud and applaud, but few will deserve higher praise than Lori Laitman.” (The Journal of Singing); “This is music of depth and richness that connects with the soul.” (American Record Guide); “Her affinity for the voice…is beyond doubt…her songs represent outpourings of great beauty.” (Fanfare Magazine). Laitman's songs have been recorded on such other labels as Channel Classics, Gasparo, Capstone and Naxos. Her music has been featured on radio programs nationwide, and articles about her work have appeared in US Operaweb, Classical Singer Magazine, The Journal of Singing and other publications. The Grove Dictionary of American Music will include an entry on Laitman in their 2012 edition.
Dormady Eisenberg, Susan, "Lines Written At The Falls" (November 2005), Classical Singer.
Dormady Eisenberg, Susan, "From Art Song To Opera" (Ocotber 2009), Classical Singer.