Laura Strickling
40@40
"Strickling performs with an intelligent combination of restraint and letting go. Her voice is full and lustrous and then bright and nimble as she weaves her way through the four cycles and two individual songs that she has selected. Each song is an individual story beautifully rendered. Collectively they make a strong statement about the status of contemporary art songs and her commitment to them."
—Schmopera
Fresh off the release of her GRAMMY-nominated solo CD Confessions, soprano Laura Strickling announced “The 40@40 Project”, an American art song commissioning initiative, comprising performances, recordings, and publication of more than forty short works for piano and soprano by contemporary American composers and poets of diverse backgrounds and points of view.
“Words matter. What we say and how we say it matters. By setting words to music, composers are creating a musical response to the text that unlocks additional dimensions of meaning not accessible through reading or spoken recitation alone. I choose songs and build song programs carefully because effective communication is fundamentally important for humanity. Art song organizations are sprouting up in cities all over the United States, and I want to see more of that moving forward because it builds community.”
—Laura Strickling, I Care if You Listen interview
Much in demand as a recitalist, Laura has so far shared songs from the initiative at venues including the vaunted Cosmos Club in Washington, DC, the University of Notre Dame, Baltimore Lieder Weekend, and concerts in Boston, Chicago, and New York.
Laura is also available for academic residencies. She has given masterclasses and career lectures at colleges and universities around the United States, with an emphasis on encouraging students to engage with new music. She curated the NewMusicShelf Anthology of New Music for Soprano, and recently announced an upcoming follow-up series: New Music for Beginning Singers.
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Biography
GRAMMY®-nominated soprano Laura Strickling has been recognized by The New York Times for her “flexible voice, crystalline diction, and warm presence.” Celebrated for her work performing and promoting art song, with an emphasis on new additions to the canon, she curated The New Music Shelf Anthology of contemporary art songs for soprano and has collaborated with numerous composers including Tom Cipullo, Daniel Felsenfeld, Juliana Hall, Libby Larsen, James Matheson, John Musto, and Glen Roven. She is on the roster of the Brooklyn Art Song Society, and has appeared with Cincinnati Song Initiative, Mexicoliederfest, Calliope’s Call, Liederfest in Suzhou (China), the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, Lyric Fest, Joy in Singing, Trinity Concerts at One, the American Liszt Society, Baltimore Lieder Weekend, the Half Moon Music Festival, Concerts on the Slope, National Sawdust, Art Song at the Old Stone House, the Brooklyn New Music Collective, SongFusion, was a featured performer at the 2016 New Music Gathering, and presented a radio broadcast recital of American songs on “Live from WFMT” in Chicago with pianist Daniel Schlosberg. Laura and pianist Liza Stepanova were Artists in Residence at the Yellow Barn Music Festival, where they presented a program of Granados and modern songs in Spanish, including the world-premiere of Ciudades del Porvenir by Reinaldo Moya. She has presented guest artist recitals and lectures at the University of Georgia, Mercer University, College of William and Mary, Mercer University, University of Notre Dame, New World School of the Arts, Notre Dame University of Maryland, Pittsburg State University, McDaniel College, St. Mary’s College, and University of Richmond. She is on the New Music Advisory Board of the Brooklyn Art Song Society, and the Advisory Board of Cincinnati Song Initiative.
Equally acclaimed for her work on the concert stage, she has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, National Sawdust, Trinity Church on Wall Street, Washington National Cathedral, and the Opera America Center. Her “powerful and expressive voice across a large range, her variety of timbre and character,” (Classical Scene), make her a welcome guest soloist for a range of oratorio and concert works, from Handel to Britten. These include Messiah with the Indianapolis Symphony and the Richmond Symphony, Gloria (Poulenc) with the Asheville Symphony, Mass in c minor (Mozart) with the Richmond Symphony, Cathedral Choral Society, and Berkshire Choral International, Stabat Mater (Dvorak) and Elijah (Mendelssohn) with Berkshire Choral International, Ein Deutsches Requiem (Brahms) with the Bel Canto Chorus of Milwaukee and Chorosynthesis, Luonnotar (Sibelius) and Les Illuminations (Britten) with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (Barber) and Les Illuminations (Britten) with Mexicoliederfest, Ninth Symphony (Beethoven) and Carmina Burana (Orff) with Choralis, as well as Requiem (Mozart), Credo Mass (Mozart), Dixit Dominus (Handel), Gloria (Vivaldi), Lord Nelson Mass (Haydn), and Mass in C (Beethoven). Her performance of Mozart’s Mass in C minor and Exsultate jubilate with the Cathedral Choral Society was broadcast by WETA, and her performance of Poulenc’s Gloria with the Asheville Symphony was broadcast by Blue Ridge Public Radio.
On the opera stage, Ms. Strickling created the role of Fanni Radnòti in the world premiere of Tom Cipullo’s opera The Parting with Music of Remembrance in Seattle and San Francisco (released on Naxos Opera Classics in 2020). An alumna of the Berkshire Opera Company resident artist program, her performance of the Dew Fairy in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel was praised by Opera News: "Laura Strickling offered the creamy, clear, younger-sister-of-Eva-Pogner instrument ideal for singing the role over full orchestration." She appeared as Pamina in the Metropolitan Opera Guild's touring outreach production of The Magic Flute. Ms. Strickling’s operatic roles also include Countess Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Cleopatra (Julius Caesar), Mimi (La boheme), Dinorah (Dinorah), Elvira (L’Italiana in Algeri), Josephine (H.M.S. Pinafore), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), and Micaëla (Carmen). She created the role of Muriel in the world premiere of Thomas Benjamin's The Alien Corn with the Peabody Opera Theater.
Ms. Strickling received critical acclaim in the Naxos Opera Classics recording of The Parting by Tom Cipullo (co-starring baritone Michael Mayes and mezzo-soprano Catherine Cook) for her “…deeply expressive, secure voice. Her exposed highs are managed wonderfully, with notable beauty.” James Matheson’s Times Alone on Yarlung Records was hailed by MusicWeb International for “shapely, nuanced voicings and emotional urgency...a striking directness.” Glen Roven’s The Vineyard Songs with pianist Michael Brofman is on New Voices, the Billboard Classical Top-Ten-selling CD. She can also be heard on “New American Song@SongFest,”, performing Jake Heggie’s Edna St. Vincent Millay with pianist Dimitri Dover, and on The Garden: Songs and Vocal Chamber Music of Tom Cipullo, performing the landmark song cycle Of a Certain Age with pianist Liza Stepanova. Her first solo recording project of American art song, Confessions with pianist Joy Schreier, was nominated for a 2020 GRAMMY® Award.
A Chicago native, Ms. Strickling is an avid traveler, having lived in Morocco, where she studied classical Arabic at the Arabic Language Institute of Fez, and Kabul, Afghanistan, where her husband was the founding chair of the Department of Law at the American University of Afghanistan. She currently makes her home in St. Thomas, U. S. Virgin Islands.