Laura Poe

Korean American pianist Laura Poe is a highly sought-after artist and collaborator who enjoys a career as a pianist, opera coach, and educator. Based in Düsseldorf, Germany, Laura is a member of the ensemble at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein.

She has also worked as a répétiteur and vocal coach at San Francisco Opera, De Nationale Opera in Amsterdam, Gran Teatre del Liceu, The Metropolitan Opera, and the Semperoper Dresden, where she made her professional conducting debut conducting 19 performances of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. The production was later invited to the Lucerne Music Festival for additional performances. Laura was also an Associate Vocal Coach at The Juilliard School, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Music Academy of the West, Aspen Music Festival and School, AIMS in Graz, and Si parla, si canta in Urbania, Italy.

A graduate of The Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Laura has trained under the tutelage of world-class musicians, conductors, and directors, including Sir Thomas Allen, Marco Armiliato, Reri Grist, Thomas Hampson, James Levine, Malcolm Martineau, Ken Noda, Felicity Palmer, Renata Scotto, Diane Soviero, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Benita Valente, José van Dam and Stephen Wadsworth.

Laura has collaborated with some of today's accomplished singers, including sopranos Lisette Oropesa, Julia Bullock, and Deborah Voigt, the latter with whom she performed a live broadcast on New York's classical radio station, WQXR. She was also featured in the BBC2 documentary What Makes a Great Soprano with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. In 2009, she was a third-prize winner at the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition in London and most recently appeared in recital with tenor, Paul Appleby.

As an experienced violinist, flutist, and horn player, Laura performs frequently with instrumentalists and singers. She is an official accompanist in several instrumental and vocal competitions and an experienced soloist and chamber musician. She has been heard in concert at numerous festivals throughout the United States including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, Ravinia Steans Institute, Bard Summerscape, Glimmerglass Opera, in New York's Alice Tully Hall, Museum of Modern Art, Europe and Trinidad and Tobago.

Laura works closely with the composer John Adams as both a pianist and an arranger/editor of the piano-vocal arrangements of his recent operas. She assisted him on recent projects with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, and the Gran Teatre del Liceu. As an arranger, she created the piano-vocal score of Adams's Antony and Cleopatra.

Laura's academic accomplishments include a Graduate Diploma in Collaborative Piano from The Juilliard School in New York City and a Master's in Accompanying and Chamber Music from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she was awarded in 2015, the first-ever Distinguished Alumni Award in Performance. A dedicated teacher, Laura holds a bachelor's degree in Instrumental Music Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Last updated: July 12, 2024