Works performed by Earplay:

A Flock Ascending

Laura Schwendinger, composer of Artemisia, winner of the 2023 American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Opera award, was the first composer to win the American Academy in Berlin Prize. A professor of music composition at UW-Madison, her works have been championed and premiered by Dawn Upshaw, Arditti & JACK Quartets, Jenny Koh, Janine Jansen, Matt Haimovitz, ICE, Eighth Blackbird, Juilliard, ACO, and Franz Liszt Orchestra. Her music has been performed at Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Berlin Philharmonic Kammermusiksaal, Wigmore, and Carnegie Hall, and the Miller, Théâtre Châtelet, Tanglewood, Aspen, Ojai, Talis, and Bennington Festivals.

Her fellowships include Guggenheim, Fromm, Koussevitzky, Radcliffe Institute, Copland Prize-Copland House, ALEA III (First Prize), American Academy Arts Letters, MacDowell, Yaddo, Bogliasco and Bellagio. Her music has been called "captivating, artful... moving" and "music of infinite beauty" in The New York Times, "the genuine article... onto the season's best list" in the Boston Globe. The SFCV review of her opera says "Artemisia is sumptuous on every level." Recent and upcoming premieres include her second opera, Cabaret of Shadows, a Fromm Commission just premiered by Musiqa at MATCH, Houston; Nightingales for Eleanor Bartsch and Ariana Kim; and her harp concerto Second Sight just premiered in Atlanta. Colin Clarke wrote about her JACK CD, Quartets: "the sheer intensity of the music is spellbinding... the passion shines through like... light."