Laura Kobayashi

Laura Kobayashi leads a varied career as a performer and pedagogue. She has participated in numerous music festivals in the United States, Norway, Argentina and Brazil and has appeared as a soloist with the Seattle, Spokane, and Grand Junction Symphonies, the Northwest Chamber Orchestra, the Omaha Symphony Chamber Orchestra, the Salta Chamber Orchestra in Argentina and the Chiang Rai Youth Orchestra in Thailand. 

As an active chamber musician, she has performed abroad in Argentina and Puerto Rico and in the United States, at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina; Merkin Concert Hall in New York City, the Embassy of Bulgaria in Washington, D.C. as well as numerous other concert venues throughout the United States.

In addition to performing with her duo partner, Susan Keith Gray, she also performs as a member of the Main Street Chamber Players and is a founding member of the Main Street Music Studios in Fairfax, VA where she maintains a private studio of violin students. She has been honored as a recipient of several awards in her career, including the 2012 VASTA (Virginia State Chapter of ASTA) Outstanding String Teacher Award and the “Excellence in Teaching” Award by the Division of Music and College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University. She has served on the faculties at West Virginia University, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the University of Georgia and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. In addition, she has played as a member of the second violin section in the San Francisco Opera Orchestra. She earned her degrees from The Juilliard School, Yale University and The University of Michigan.