Laura Barger, pianist has performed both as a soloist and chamber musician at the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, Bang on a Can Summer Institute at Mass MOCA, The Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, Canada, The Institute and Festival for Contemporary Performance at Mannes College of Music, The Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), Chamber Music at Wiks Castle (Sweden), and throughout the New York area. She is a founding member of the piano/percussion quartet Yarn/Wire , and has performed with new music groups San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Ensemble, Inc., Lost Dog New Music, Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, Argento Chamber Ensemble, and Talujon Percussion.
Dedicated to the creation of new works, she has premiered works by composers from around the world, including Philippe Leroux, Dai Fujikura, and Mei-Fang Lin. Notable persons she has worked with include Pierre Boulez, Philippe Leroux, Gilbert Kalish, Leon Fleisher, Augusta Read Thomas, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Yan Maresz, Stephen Drury, Terry Riley, and Steven Schick. Laura holds degrees in piano performance from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (BM) and SUNY-Stony Brook (MM, DMA).
Currently, Laura is extremely excited to be a part of a new experimental chamber opera by Ellen Lindquist based on the poetry of Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer. Set to premiere in 2009, For Levande och Doda (For the Living and the Dead) incorporates improvisation, movement, and set design as a multifaceted embodiment of Transtromer's work.
Additionally, Laura can be found performing with the experimental pop group Hi Red Center.
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Olivier Messiaen's Visions de L'Amen with pianist Isabelle O'Connell, April 2008, NYC:
