Laura Smoller (flute, piccolo) began her flute studies in 1970 with Kris Calhoun in Little Rock, Arkansas; other notable teachers include Kay McSpadden (Arkansas Symphony Orchestra) and Bonnie Insull (at Dartmouth College, where Smoller was the winner of the McDonald-Smith Prize for Music).  Smoller has been a member of Cordancia since she moved to Rochester in 2014.  She also performs with the University of Rochester Symphony Orchestra, at which institution she is, in her spare time, Arthur R. Miller Professor of History, with a specialization in medieval European history. 

  

In her role as historian, Smoller is the author of History, Prophecy, and the Stars: The Christian Astrology of Pierre d’Ailly, 1350-1420 (1994) and The Saint and the Chopped-Up Baby: The Cult of Vincent Ferrer in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2014).  She is currently writing a third book, tentatively titled “Astrology and the Sibyls: Routes to Religious Truth in Medieval and Renaissance Europe.”