Two-time GRAMMY® award nominee for Best Classical Vocal Solo Album, soprano Laura Strickling was recognized by The New York Times for her, “flexible voice, crystalline diction, and warm presence.” Celebrated for her work in art song with an emphasis on new additions to the canon, she has been featured twice in Classical Singer Magazine for commissioning and recording new music, curated The New Music Shelf Anthology of Contemporary Art Songs for Soprano, and recently announced The 40@40 Project – her personal initiative to commission new music, which has surpassed original goals and continues to foster exciting collaborations between important contemporary composers and poets.

Equally acclaimed for her work on the concert stage, 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 and beyond. These include Fourth Symphony (Mahler) with the Knoxville Symphony and the San Antonio Philharmonic, Ninth Symphony (Beethoven) with the Seattle Symphony and the Elgin Symphony, Bachianas Brasileiras (Villa-Lobos) with the San Antonio Philharmonic, Exsultate, jubilate (Mozart) with the Cathedral Choral Society, Messiah (Handel) with the Indianapolis Symphony, the Pacific 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, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (Barber) with the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra, 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) with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and Les Illuminations (Britten) with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and Mexicoliederfest, and Pierrot Lunaire (Schoenberg) with the Chiarina Chamber Players and the Mid-Atlantic Reed Consort, as well as Carmina Burana (Orff), Requiem (Mozart), Credo Mass (Mozart), Dixit Dominus (Handel), Gloria (Vivaldi), Lord Nelson Mass (Haydn), and Mass in C (Beethoven). 

Nominated for GRAMMY® awards for Best Classical Vocal Solo Album for Confessions (2022) and 40@40 (2024), Ms. Strickling has received widespread critical acclaim for her recordings: “…a compellingly honest performer, whose rich, expressive soprano conveys vulnerability with a balance of shimmering tone and unaffected diction,” (Opera News Magazine). “This extraordinarily expressive and versatile singer…performs with an intelligent combination of restraint and letting go. Her voice is full and lustrous and then bright and nimble…” (Schmopera). "Strickling fulfills and FILLS this role, her voice as a siren-chameleon, changing shape and color and nature with total control as contexts switch and emotions bend ever so slightly from word to word,” (American Record Guide). She was also praised for the Naxos Opera Classics recording of The Parting by Tom Cipullo, “…deeply expressive, secure voice. Her exposed highs are managed wonderfully, with notable beauty,” (San Francisco Classical Voice). Her discography also includes Times Alone (James Matheson), The Vineyard Songs (Glen Roven), Edna St. Vincent Millay (Jake Heggie), and Of a Certain Age (Tom Cipullo). 

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 in 2019 and revisited the role with Chelsea Opera in Syracuse in Spring 2022 and New York City in Fall 2022. She created the role of Dr. Slade in the nine-episode TV-opera film, Everything for Dawn with Experiments in Opera, which received its AllArts and Opera Philadelphia broadcast premiere in 2022. 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’s art song repertoire includes over 450 songs and vocal chamber works in 14 languages, performed with such organizations and institutions as the Brooklyn Art Song Society, Cincinnati Song Initiative, Mexicoliederfest, Chiarina Chamber Players, Liederfest in Suzhou (China), the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, Lyric Fest, Joy in Singing, Songfest, Calliope’s Call, Trinity Concerts at One, the American Liszt Society, Baltimore Lieder Weekend, Concerts on the Slope, SongFusion, National Sawdust, Art Song at the Old Stone House, and the Brooklyn New Music Collective. She has been a featured performer at the New Music Gathering, presented a radio broadcast recital of American songs on “Live from WFMT” in Chicago with pianist Daniel Schlosberg, and was an Artist in Residence at the Yellow Barn Music Festival, and has presented guest artist recitals, masterclasses, and lectures at the University of Georgia, San Antonio College, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, 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 Artistic Advisory Boards of Cincinnati Song Initiative and Calliope’s Call.

A Chicago native, Ms. Strickling is an avid traveler, having lived in Fez (Morocco) - where she studied classical Arabic at the Arabic Language Institute of Fez, Kabul (Afghanistan) - where her husband was the founding chair of the Department of Law at the American University of Afghanistan, and for the last nine years in St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands). She recently relocated to Wisconsin where she is learning to appreciate cheese, beer, and being cold. 

BRAHMS | Requiem | Bel Canto Chorus and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra | Richard Hynson, cond.

"...clear, silvery sound and lyricism..." — Elaine Schmidt, TapMilwaukee

BRITTEN | Les Illuminations | Tanglewood Music Center | Alexandre Bloch, cond.

"...brought ravishing tone to these brilliantly varied pieces..." — Michael J. Moran, In the Spotlight

"Strickling impressed with her powerful and expressive voice across a large range, her variety of timbre and character, and playful demeanor embodying lighter moments of this song-cycle." — Classical Scene

HANDEL | Messiah | Distinguished Concerts International, Avery Fisher Hall | Jonathan Griffith, cond.

“One high point was Soprano Laura Strickling’s thrilling coloratura in “Rejoice greatly” – the fast tempo allowed her to sing the inhumanly long vocal lines in one breath." — New York Concert Review

HUMPERDINCK | Hansel and Gretel | “Dew Fairy” | Berkshire Opera | Kathleen Kelly, cond.

"...Strickling is not one of those chirpy sopranos that often inhabit the Dew Fairy's role, and her strong and well-focused vocal instrument provided one of the most persuasive wakeup calls in memory at the beginning of Act III." — The Berkshire Eagle

"...offered the creamy, clear, younger-sister-of-Eva-Pogner instrument ideal for singing the role over full orchestration." — Opera News

LARSEN, L. | Songs from Letters | Opera Moderne

"...brought a flexible voice, crystalline diction, and warm presence..."

— Zachary Wolfe, The New York Times

RECORDINGS

40@40, 2023

“40@40 is already gaining considerable, well-deserved notice. Upon its release, it landed on the top of the Traditional Classical category on the Billboard Charts. Art song doesn’t often garner such a distinction, and Strickling’s advocacy for the genre is laudable. She is a talented vocalist with a wide range, warm in her low register and powerful in an impressive upper register. Moreover, her interpretive gifts are considerable.” – Sequenza21

Confessions, 2021

“this is a collection of poignant works, pieces whose words and notes exhibit storytelling at its finest. "Strickling fulfills and FILLS this role, her voice as a siren-chameleon, changing shape and color and nature with total control as contexts switch and emotions bend ever so slightly from word to word."”

 – American Record Guide

"While listening to Soprano Laura Strickling's latest album, Confessions, I was reminded of a phrase she has said countless times..., "Song Matters." Her new CD, available now from Yarlung Records, embodies this credo, that the combination of words and music is not a nicety or luxury, but rather an urgent human necessity.  Both the music itself as well as Laura’s performances have an urgency that’s palpable.  It’s at the same time a deeply personal and yet fully universal statement." – Classical Post

"The first thing that hits you when you listen to the album is the clarity and translucent quality of Stricking’s voice. It washes over the listener, enveloping them in her daydream...Strickling and Schreier seamlessly transition from anxiety to excitement and back to anxiety. Strickling uses her solid command of vocal technique such as diminuendos, ornamentation, and appoggiaturas to drive the narrative arc...Her command of vocal technique is definitely a hallmark of the album which serves her well..." – Classical Singer Magazine

"This extraordinarily expressive and versatile singer has with courageous specificity chosen songs that brim with delineations of her life. 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

"Strickling’s shimmering voice offers an animation that blends and lifts these songs off the page into another world. These three aspects of composer, vocalist, and pianist create the type of special moment so often sought after in the world of song...The title of the piece, Confessions struck me while thinking about the album as a whole. At first, it appears that the ‘confession’ is one of guilt; be it eating cake and pie, or buying that luxury handbag. However, when you listen to the care of execution that the performers and composers brought to this work of art, it is clear that this is not a confession of guilt. It is a confession of faith. Faith that music and art are what will get us through this pandemic." -- NATS

The Parting: Tom Cipullo/David Mason, 2020

“Strickling… transitions to deeply expressive, secure voice. Her exposed highs are managed wonderfully, with notable beauty. A champion of Cipullo’s music, she does full justice to the music of the role.”  --

San Francisco Classical Voice

James Matheson: Times Alone, 2016

"Times Alone captures the impressive dynamic power of soprano Laura Strickling..."

— Andrew Quint, The Absolute Sound

"Strickling’s shapely, nuanced voicings and emotional urgency in the first three songs has a striking directness. Thomas Sauer achieves some luminous sonorities in the final pair, blending admirably with Strickling’s deeply personal utterances." — Stephen Greenbank, MusicWeb International

New Voices – Brooklyn Art Song Society, 2015

"Soprano Laura Strickling's lovely diction and warm, clear sound bring attractive immediacy to this cycle."

— Opera News Magazine