Title: Conference of the Birds Unfeathered
Commission: 2011
Completed: 2012
Instrumentation: soprano, percussion, violin, clarinet, cello, and video animation
Premiere Location: UC Davis Department of Music
Premiere Ensemble: The Empyrean Ensemble
Notes:

Laurie San Martin writes music that creates a compelling narrative by exploring the intersection between texture and line. Critics have described her music as exuberant, colorful, forthright, high octane, tumultuous, intricate, intense and rumbly. She writes concert music for chamber ensembles and orchestra but has also written for theater, dance and video. Her music has been performed across the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Laurie has worked with numerous ensembles including the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Berlin PianoPercussion, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Radius Ensemble, eighth blackbird, SF Chamber Orchestra, the Lydian Quartet, Magnetic South Ensemble, Washington Square Contemporary Chamber Players, and others.

Recent accolades include an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2018, and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship. Past recognitions include a fellowship from the Fromm Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, League of Composers-ISCM, the International Alliance for Women in Music, and the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer’s Awards. As a composition fellow, she has attended the MacDowell Colony, the Montalvo Artist Residency, Yaddo, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Norfolk Contemporary Chamber Music Festival and the Composers Conference at Wellesley College.