Rachel C. Lauber is currently on the faculties of the Eastman School of Music and the Eastman Community Music School. As resident conductor of Cordancia Chamber Orchestra she has worked with the ensemble for over ten years. Ms. Lauber has served as music director and conductor of several orchestras in both New York State and Michigan. She has conducted the All-Eastern Symphony Orchestra as well as numerous Conference All-State and festival orchestras throughout the United States. 

 

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 studied and conducted throughout Italy including studies and residencies at Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy (the city for which her daughter is named). 

 

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, and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music with artist faculty Marin Alsop and James Ross.

 

Ms. Lauber is also a visual and textile artist who has exhibited at the Memorial Art Gallery Clothesline Festival in Rochester, NY and 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.