Ms. Smukler is a faculty member in the College for the following department(s) and division(s): Chamber Music & Ensembles — Piano & Strings (College) String — Violin (College)

Laurie Smukler Violin Admired for her intensity and the beauty of her sound, Laurie Smukler is an active performer as soloist and recitalist and has established a reputation as one of the finest chamber musicians in the country. In New York she performs regularly with the Festival Chamber Music Society at Merkin Hall, the Bard Music Festival at Tully Hall, and on the Collection in Concert series at the Pierpont Morgan Library. Dedicated to teaching as well as to performing, she is professor of violin and head of the string area at the SUNY Conservatory of Music at Purchase College, as well as a member of the faculty at Manhattan School of Music. Ms. Smukler also teaches and performs at the prestigious Kneisel Hall Festival in Blue Hill, Maine, in the summer. She has been an invited guest at summer festivals across the country, including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chambermusic Northwest, the Bard Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Skaneateles Festival, and the Mount Desert Island Festival. As a chamber musician, Ms. Smukler was the founding first violinist of the Mendelssohn String Quartet. She has collaborated with many of the great artists of our time, including Rudolf Serkin, Menahem Pressler, Richard Goode, Leon Fleischer, Rudolf Firkusny, Dawn Upshaw, Benita Valente, Evelyn Lear, Oscar Shumsky, Robert Mann, Richard Stoltzman, Charles Neidich, Michael Tree, and the Vermeer and Emerson String Quartets. She is currently the first violinist of the Bard Festival String Quartet. Ms. Smukler's wide musical interests include contemporary music and she has premiered works by many composers including Ned Rorem, Morton Subotnik, Steven Paulus, Shulamit Ran, and Bruce Adolphe. She is active as co-artistic director and performer in an exciting concert series entitled “The Collection in Concert” at the Pierpont Morgan Library and is also artistic director of the Faculty and Friends concerts at the Performing Arts Center of Purchase College. Ms. Smukler plays a Petrus Guarnerius violin made in 1738.

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