13th Annual International Art Song Competition in Stuttgart, Germany

I'm thrilled to learn that I am one of the women composers included as suggested repertoire for the 13th Annual International Art Song Competition in Stuttgart, Germany. This competition is one of the oldest in the German speaking world and is sponsored by the International Hugo Wolf Academy.

Traditional composers represented include Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolf, and Johannes Brahms and British composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Roger Quilter, Frank Bridge, Gerald Finzi and Benjamin Britten. The new music section of this year's competition is dedicated to living comtemporary composers.

For more information, please click here

and to see the repertoire list in its entirety, please click here.

The Ocean of Eternity — release date 4.26.22 on Acis

My latest CD, The Ocean of Eternity, is to be released on April 26, 2022 on the Acis label. 

The CD focuses on themes of life, longing and mortality, and contains several world premiere recordings. The centerpiece is The Ocean of Eternity, a song cycle scored for the unusual combination of soprano, soprano saxophone and piano. It sets the poetry of Anne Ranasinghe, a German Jew who, after escaping the Nazis and losing her entire family in the war, settled in Sri Lanka. New arrangements of Vedem Songs tell the story of the boys imprisoned in the Terezin Concentration Camp, while excerpts from Ludlow, my opera with librettist David Mason, show America's tragic treatment of immigrants.

Classic poets Emily Dickinson, William Butler Yeats and Edna St. Vincent Millay are featured alongside contemporary poets Annie Finch, Dana Gioia, Jennifer Reeser, A.E. Stallings and Diane Thiel.

The performers are sopranos Nicole Cabell (Cardiff Singer of the World (2005, Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera), ALISA JORDHEIM (Opéra National de Paris, San Diego Opera), Maureen McKay (Metropolitan Opera, Komische Oper Berlin), PATRICE MICHAELS (creator of RBG in Song, Shanghai and Czech National Symphonies), YUNGEE RHIE (Oregon Symphony, Tanglewood Music Center); mezzo-soprano KATIE HANNIGAN (Merola Opera, Rochester Philharmonic); GRAMMY Award-winner baritone DANIEL BELCHER (The Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Versailles, Houston Grand Opera); violinist TARN TRAVERS (Dal Niente, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra); soprano saxophone MICHAEL COUPER (San Diego and Modesto Symphonies); and collaborative pianists CHOEUN LEE (Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood Music Center), TZE-WEN (Julia) LIN (The Hochstein School and Cascadia Concert Opera), ANDREW ROSENBLUM (second prize winner at the 2017 Prague International and 2018 International Bach Competition Leipzig), and LORI LAITMAN.

The cover portrait, by celebrated artist PAUL WYSE, was commissioned for this CD.

Gramophone praised her most recent release as "eminently singable" with "wide appeal...[and] humour aplenty" and musicologist John Michael Cooper wrote "Laitman provides some of the most ravishingly beautiful music that I know in the repertoire."

The CD can be ordered on Amazon here.

The Scarlet Letter at Wichita State University April 8-9, 2022

Wichita State University Opera Theater, under the direction of Alan Held, along with The Wichita State University Orchestra, conducted by Dr. Mark Laycock, will present the Kansas premiere of The Scarlet Letter, my opera with David Mason on April 8-9, 2022. The opera is based on the classic tale by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The opera was commissioned in 2007 by The University of Central Arkansas, who premiered it in 2008. After extensive revisions, Opera Colorado presented the professional premiere in 2016, and the subsequent Naxos release received critical acclaim. It was named one of the top 5 CDs of 2018 by Fanfare Magazine, a Critic's Choice by Opera News, and Gramophone wrote: The first thing that leaps into one's ears is the sheer beauty of the music. Laitman has devoted much of her career to the art song, and her ability to meld words with lyrical, often soaring lines is on abundant display in her opera. 

For more information about the Wichita production, please click here.

For more information about the opera itself, please email lori@artsongs.com.

UNCOVERED premieres with Utah State University Opera on March 31, 2022

Uncovered, my chamber opera based on Leah Lax's memoir "Uncovered: How I Left Hasidic Life and Finally Came Home," is premiering March 31, 2022 at Utah State University. The work was commissioned by a consortium comprised of USU, City Lyric Opera and The New York Opera Society. The NYC premiere will be presented by City Lyric Opera November 16-19, 2022.

The work is scored for 8 singers, chorus and an instrumental quartet with clarinet, violin, cello and piano.

The Utah production is taking place at the historic Caine Lyric Theatre. The show is conducted by Music Director Dallas Heaton, and staged by visiting director Beth Greenberg. 

For more information, please click here. 

Indianapolis Opera to present Vedem with Krasa's Brundibar

Indianapolis Opera is presenting a double bill of Vedem, my Holocaust oratorio with David Mason with Hans Krasa's Brundibar this March 18-20, 2022. 

Vedem was commissioned and premiered in 2010 by Music of Remembrance. The work tells the story of the boys of Terezin and their secret magazine, Vedem (Czech for "In the Lead"). This unique double bill enfolds Krasa's Brundibar within Vedem's story.

Vedem is the first piece composed by a female composer to be performed with Indianapolis Opera. Click here for an article about this historic production. And for more information and to purchase tickets, please click here.