Laura Hundert

Biography

Laura Hundert (b. 1996, Boston Massachusetts) is a clarinetist who is passionate about exploring all styles of music and building a more inclusive and accessible community of the arts.

Laura is currently the Groove Community Coordinator for Paragon Music, an inclusive music charity helping to inspire and empower young people and adults with additional support needs. In addition to helping with the many group music workshops as a clarinet practitioner, Laura has developed the Groove Program, a one-to-one mentoring program that “aims to raise and fulfil people's creative aspirations, developing their skills and providing flexible, sustainable pathways to participation in the arts” (https://www.paragon-music.org/).

As a dedicated soloist and chamber musician, Laura has already received numerous awards and honors. Most recently, she received the 2022 Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Alumni “Make It Happen” Award. While completing her Master of Music at the RCS she was Highly Commended in the 2019 Governors’ Woodwind Recital Competition as well as a Finalist in the 2018 Classical Concerto Competition. She was awarded the 2018 Young Artist Award at the Zodiac Music Academy and Festival in Valdeblore, France and in 2016 won the Contemporary Performance Competition at the Cortona Sessions for New Music in Cortona, Italy. In addition to her Bachelor of Music degree, Laura was also awarded the esteemed Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music.

Laura is a member of The Silver Keys, an international clarinet quartet based in Scotland. The Silver Keys is part of Classical Musicians Scotland and was a recipient of the 2022-2023 Scotland on Tour Fund. As a soloist, Laura has performed with the Nevis Ensemble, Perth Symphony Orchestra, the Band of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, and for the Musica Scotica Celebration of Sir James MacMillan. As an avid performer of contemporary music, she was a member of the American Modern Orchestra for the inaugural Mostly Modern Festival during the summer of 2018, and attended the Fresh Inc. Festival with the Fifth House Ensemble in the summer of 2017.

Laura’s journey to becoming a professional musician began in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where she was given the opportunity to engage with Cleveland’s vibrant music scene. She was a member of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, and performed side-by-side with both the Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Pops. At sixteen years old, Laura won the Contemporary Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition performing the Artie Shaw Clarinet Concerto in February 2013. Laura also had the opportunity to perform concerts on tour in Poland and Hungary with the Cleveland Youth Wind Symphony and in Turkey with the Shaker Heights High School Marching Band. 

As a member of the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, a transformative experience for Laura was performing in the official orchestra for the Alternative Press Music Awards in July 2014 where she played alongside artists including Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Machine Gun Kelly, and Fall Out Boy. During Contemporary Youth Orchestra’s “Rock the Orchestra” series, Laura had the opportunity to play with funk legend Bootsy Collins, Woodstock headliner Jefferson Starship (formerly Jefferson Airplane), and pianist/singer-songwriter Ben Folds.

In addition to music, Laura is passionate about social justice, interfaith cooperation, and intercultural understanding, and she is always striving to create ways in which music can encourage appreciation of differences and similarities among diverse communities.

Laura holds a Master of Music from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and a Bachelor of Music with a Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, where she graduated with High Distinction and was awarded the Anne T. Cummins Prize in Humanities. Her primary teachers have been John Cushing, Kenneth Grant, Luiz Coelho, and Louis Gangale. In her free time, Laura enjoys sipping red wine and cuddling cats.