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Rachel Lauber

Rachel Lauber photo by Jennilyn Pickering.jpeg

Rachel C. Lauber is currently on the faculty of the Eastman Community Music School and resident conductor of Cordancia Chamber Orchestra. She has served as music director and conductor of the Finger Lakes Symphony Orchestra and Livingston Symphony Orchestra (MI). Ms. Lauber conducted the 2023 All-Eastern Symphony Orchestra as well as numerous Conference All-State and festival orchestras throughout the United States. She recently participated in an artist residency program at the Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in the Hudson Valley exploring the connection between orchestral works, visual art, gesture and movement studies. 

 

In 2004 she was appointed a staff conductor at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) where she conducted the Civic Orchestra and shared the podium in concert with Neeme Jarvi, Tom Wilkins and Mark Wigglesworth. In addition to her conducting duties at the DSO, she was artistic director of the Unmasked concert series, planning multi media productions and working with guest conductors including Nicolas McGegan, Roger Norrington, JoAnn Falletta, John Adams, Hans Graf and Tom Wilkins. She was assistant conductor and musical stage manager to Leonard Slatkin for the Grammy Award winning concert and recording of William Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, a two-hour-and-17-minute song cycle for choirs, vocalists, electric and folk instruments, and symphony orchestra.

 

Ms. Lauber has taught at the University at Buffalo, Cornell University, Nazareth University and Wayne State University. She has appeared as guest conductor with the Rochester Philharmonic, the Slee Sinfonietta, and the Holland Symphony Orchestra (MI) and has conducted throughout Italy. 

 

Ms. Lauber studied with Kenneth Kiesler at the University of Michigan where she received a doctorate in orchestral conducting. Her studies include the Brevard Music Center with Gunther Schuller, the Oregon Bach Festival with Helmuth Rilling, numerous workshops of the Conductor’s Guild and the League of American Orchestras, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music with artist faculty Marin Alsop and James Ross and two summers at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. 

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photo credit: Jennilyn Pickering

Cordancia lends an incredible atmosphere to explore new works for chamber orchestra through rewarding rehearsals that center around fully realizing the orchestral colour pallette. The members are dedicated to the process of exploring music together in new and exciting ways. It is an enriching and exciting process and experience every time I am fortunate enough to work with the ensemble. 

© 2025 by CORDANCIA Inc.

 

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