Born in Iowa, raised in California, Laura grew up with a mother who played Scott Joplin on the piano and show tunes on the cello and a father who sang her to sleep with haunting folk songs like Go Tell Aunt Rhody. At age 14, she wrote advertising jingles and pop songs for fun, while teachers encouraged her to study classical voice.
She earned a B.M. in voice performance at the UOP Conservatory of Music in Stockton, then married a charming East Indian pharmacist and went on to graduate studies in French Literature and Comparative Literature at Indiana University, Bloomington. Before her Ph.D. dissertation was complete, babies came along to snap her out of her academic groove. While caring for her two daughters, she wrote poetry and humor, performed and painted faces at birthday parties, taught drama and improv classes for kids and adults, led creative writing groups, studied hypnosis and meditation, and eventually found her way back to songwriting at age 37. In songwriting, she can make use of anything she has ever done or been or wished to be.
She is thrilled to be settled in Davis, California, singing and playing string bass with musical collaborators who live just down the street. The trio MudLark was born during work on her 2005 solo CD, Bloom, and includes Alaskan singer, songwriter, and banjo mistress Katie Henry and guitarist/singer Ray Frank, originally from the Bronx. Together, they are creating powerful new work that is refreshingly original while deeply rooted in American musical tradition. MudLark's first CD, Nest, was released in 2007.
Since then, Laura has completed another community-based solo project, a CD titled "In Equal Measure: Songs for the Tender Witness." This collection of sensitive original songs was created with the support and guidance of Yolo Hospice, where Laura has been a volunteer since 2003, and was funded in part by a City of Davis Art Contract. This work has led her to speaking and singing engagements at churches, memorials, and support group meetings.
When she is not in the studio or preparing for a gig, Laura can be found at choir rehearsal (she currently performs with two local choirs), composing music for Winters Shakespeare Workshop, or working on creative writing projects. She has two novel-length manuscripts in the works-- the semi-autobiographical Wingspan, and A Thousand Glances, a romantic and metaphysical romp with Indian food and ghosts.