Bio

Laura Usiskin (she/her) is dedicated to enriching the world through music performance, education, and innovation. Praised for her "electrifying" (EarRelevant) and "thoughtful, attentive" playing (Alabama Entertainment), performances have taken her throughout the United States and Europe, including the Kennedy Center, Palazzo Chigi Saracini (Siena, Italy), Symphony Hall (Boston), and New York venues including Alice Tully Hall, Weill Hall, Zankel Hall, Merkin Hall, Miller Theatre, Barge Music, Steinway Hall, Klavierhaus, and more. She has been honored to receive the Prix d’Instrument from the Écoles d'art Americaines (France) and the Aldo Parisot Prize at Yale University.

Usiskin is a devoted chamber musician and has performed with such renowned artists as Emanuel Ax, Richard Stoltzman, and Ani Kavafian. As a founding and current member of the Bayberry String Quartet, Usiskin has performed at Carnegie Hall, Chautauqua Institute, and has released the album Only Mozarts in the Building featuring the six Mozart Milanese string quartets. Usiskin is also a co-founder of the Atlanta-based nonprofit ensemble vim, a new music collective whose initiatives include composer commissions, interdisciplinary projects, and educational outreach. In addition, Usiskin tours throughout the country as the cellist of the Astralis Ensemble.

Solo performances include the complete J.S. Bach solo suites as well as concertos of Dvořák and Shostakovich with the Montgomery Symphony and Orchestra Iowa respectively, with an upcoming solo performance with the Georgia Philharmonic in Fall 2024.

While completing the Artist-In-Residency program with the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, Usiskin founded and served as the inaugural Executive Director the Montgomery Music Project, an El Sistema strings program for school students of all income levels in Montgomery, Alabama. Now more than ten years old, the program has given intensive string instruction to more than a thousand children across three counties.

A committed educator, Usiskin has served on the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, through which she founded the chamber concert series Chamber Music @ AEIVA, as well as Birmingham-Southern College, Alabama School of Fine Arts, and STEP Birmingham. She currently maintains a private studio of cello students at her home in Atlanta.

Usiskin's cello studies began at age five with Gilda Barston of the Music Institute of Chicago and continued with Richard Hirschl of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She graduated from Columbia University cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience and Behavior, The Juilliard School with a Master of Music, and Yale University with a Doctor of Musical Arts.