LAURA SPITZER is a Steinway artist who has performed under contract with such prominent arts organizations as Community Concert Association and Canada’s Festival Concert Society, and was the recipient of four touring grants from the Nevada State Council on the Arts and the Nevada Humanities Committee.

From 1984 to 2003 Spitzer traveled with her Steinway grand packed into her truck, bringing classical music to hundreds of rural communities and schools throughout the U.S. and western Canada. In recognition of this contribution, she was honored with the Nevada Governor’s Arts Award. She has been featured on major television networks and in such publications as People, Time, Reader’s Digest, Mother Earth News, The New York Times, Clavier…and Overdrive.

Laura Spitzer attended Oberlin Conservatory, and completed her undergraduate studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria with Hans Leygraf, where she was awarded the Bösendorfer Stipend and graduated with distinction. She performed frequently as a member of the Austrian Ensemble for New Music, and recorded numerous programs for Austrian Radio.

After taking first prize at Salzburg’s Kurt Leimer Competition, she earned her Master of Music at the Peabody Institute with Leon Fleisher and her Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Southern California with John Perry. While an adjunct instructor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas she recorded, performed, and toured with UNLV’s new music group, Las Vegas Chamber Players, and more recently has collaborated with their current new music ensemble, Nextet.

In 2000 Dr. Spitzer joined the faculty at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, where she serves as piano area coordinator and teaches piano and piano-related subjects, chamber music, music history, and form and analysis. She has also spearheaded courses in practice methods and wellness for music majors, and is a published author of innovative pedagogical materials. Many of her piano students have gone on to earn master’s and doctoral degrees at distinguished institutions, and enjoy teaching and performing careers of their own. During the summer, she directs a piano workshop at Idyllwild Arts in California, where she has taught for 28 years.

Spitzer continues to enthusiastically champion new music, performing regularly on NMSU’s Contemporary Arts Festival. She is currently recording a CD of twentieth- and twenty-first-century solo piano music, featuring Virko Baley’s formidable Nocturnal No. 5, written for her. Her contemporary chamber music performances can be heard on Haunted America Suite (Summit Records), Jurassic Bird: Chamber Music of Virko Baley (Cambria Records), and Another View: American Classics for Wind (Cambria Records).