Dr. Laura Eakman

An avid freelance and chamber musician, Laura has performed throughout the United States and internationally. As a chamber musician, Dr. Eakman has collaborated with the assistant concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, Michelle Kim, as well as renowned soloist, Elizabeth Pitcairn. She has worked with the Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane Dance Company, performed with new music ensembles in Colorado, and was a founding member of the Avant Duo, Kylian Quartet, and Camus Quartet which toured the Netherlands in 2009. She has served as assistant principal violist with the Northbrook Symphony Orchestra, the Kishwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and the Lasalle Bank Messiah held at Chicago’s Civic Opera House.

Laura  currently serves as Executive Director of the Music Academy in Rockford, a non-profit community music school offering traditional and Suzuki instruction. Prior to her work in Rockford, she Founded Suzuki Strings of Manhattan where she ran a Suzuki Program and Summer Chamber Music Camp and conducted the local youth Orchestra. She has experience as chair of the Strings Division for the Community School for the Performing Arts at Kansas State and was a Teaching Artist with El Sistema Colorado which serves primarily disadvantaged students in the Denver Area.

Laura received her Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder where she served as Erika Eckert’s teaching assistant and studied chamber music with members of the Takacs Quartet. Her doctoral thesis, Teaching the Violin with Purpose: strategies designed to foster musical, cognitive, and social development in low-income students, has been a resource for El Sistema sites, and has been adapted to suit the Suzuki philosophy in an ASJ article and convention presentation.\

Laura’s pedagogy training has included Suzuki registration with Ann Montzka-Smelser as well as classes and workshops with Mimi Zweig of Indiana University; she enjoys enrichment courses and is always learning as a teacher and pedagogue!