Lauren Taylor

Violist and violinist Lauren Taylor is an emerging young musician from Ontario. She is an enthusiastic beginner Suzuki violin and viola teacher, with extensive performance training in solo, chamber, and orchestral settings, as well as with her band, Safe as Houses.

Lauren began her Suzuki teacher training journey in the fall of 2020, when she began her two-year long-term teacher training course under teacher trainer Paule Barsalou. She completed Violin Units 1-4 in April of 2021, and is set to complete her training in Violin Units 5-8 with Practicum in April of 2022.

Lauren has performed as a soloist with the Guelph Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Concorde Performing Ensemble, and has participated in the OMFA Provincial Finals for her solo work, as well as with string quartet, chamber orchestra and symphony orchestra. She was a founding member of the Formare Piano Quartet, second place prize winners of The 2019 Glenn Gould School Chamber Music Competition. Prior to ths, she attended Quartetfest 2017 with the Oniero String Quartet as Penderecki String Quartet Prize winners. There, they were invited to perform the Golijov Last Round nonet with the Penderecki String Quartet and Dave Young at the Quartetfest twenty-fifth anniversary opening concert, as well as the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with James Campbell at the Quartetfest opening gala. She was a member of the Concorde Performing Ensemble, an award- winning youth chamber orchestra, during their exchange tours in Edmonton, AB., St. John’s, NL, and Poland, as well as their performance at the 2012 Suzuki Association of the Americas bi-annual conference. Lauren has also toured with The National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and performed as principal viola with The Royal Conservatory Orchestra and the Wilfrid Laurier University Symphony Orchestra.

Lauren began her musical journey at the age of four in her hometown of Guelph, Ontario, where she studied at the Suzuki String School of Guelph under Paule Barsalou, Witold Swoboda, and Elspeth Durward. She then attended Wilfrid Laurier University in the violin studio of Jerzy Kaplanek and the viola studio of Christine Vlajk, where she earned Alumni String Scholarships for outstanding performance and the Alumni Gold Medal for highest academic average in her graduating class. After her BMus, Lauren completed the Chamber Music Diploma program, focusing intensively on string quartet playing with the Penderecki String Quartet. She then went on to attend The Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory of Music in the studio of Steven Dann on The Patrick and Barbara Keenan Foundation Scholarship, where she earned an Artist Diploma and stayed an additional year as an Orchestral Scholar. When she is not performing classical music, Lauren is a member of Kitchener-Waterloo indie-folk band Safe as Houses, who have released three full-length albums, and have been touring Canada in support of their latest FACTOR funded record, Lucky Lucky (Deluxe), since its release in April 2019.