Canadian performer Laura Young was director of the "Amstadam International Guitar Festival", which she founded, in 1997-2001, and became professor at the "Esucuela Superior de Música de Catalunya" (ESMUC) in Barcelona, Spain, in 2003. Since 2014 she has been university professor of guitar at the Mozarteum University.
Laura Young began studying music at the age of six. From the age of nine she devoted herself exclusively to the guitar. At the "University of Toronto" she obtained her "Bachelor of Music" under the direction of Eli Kassner. She continued her studies with David Russel and completed them with Hubert Käppel at the Musikhochschule in Köln, Germany. As a soloist, Laura Young has given highly acclaimed performances in the world's most prestigious concert halls, including the Alte Oper (Frankfurt), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), The National Arts Center (Ottawa), Salle Cortot, (Paris ), Teatro IFT (Buenos Aires), Institut Frances (Madrid), Chappelle St. Louis (Montreal) and Rathaus Aachen, (Germany), Vienciuskerk, Amsterdam, Ijsbreker, Amsterdam, De Schalm. Laura Young has won numerous international guitar competitions, such as the Andrés Segovia competition in Palma de Mallorca, Spain and the Jacinto e Inocencio Guerrero competition in Madrid. Her reputation as an inspirational and innovative performer, coupled with her unparalleled practice as an educator, has led her to teach masterclasses at world-renowned competitions. 1997-2001 Young was Artistic Director of the Amsterdam International Guitar Festival, of which she is also the founder. Under her leadership, the festival achieved great international renown and developed into a celebration of classical guitar music and art. In the last year of the festival, students and artists came from over 20 countries to take part in the week-long master classes, concerts, readings and world premieres of newly composed pieces. As a master interpreter of contemporary music, Laura Young has premiered solo pieces and chamber music by contemporary composers such as Sergio Assad, Carlo Domeniconi, Atanas Ourkouzounov, Gyan Riley, Feliu Gasull, Jorge Morel, Ferdinand Försch and Apostolos Paraskevas. Her unique style and performance practice continue to inspire composers around the world to write new, amazing music for the guitar today; Music that could only come about thanks to their far-reaching innovations and the stylistic scope of their playing. With the guitarists Zoran Dukić and Pablo Marquez, Laura Young founded the "Trio de Cologne", which was continuously active in concerts in Europe and America in the 1990s. Even today it is considered one of the most pioneering guitar ensembles due to its incredibly high level of playing and its witty choice of repertoire and interpretation. Since 2010 she has been playing chamber music, mainly with mezzo-soprano Frances Pappas in the “Lagrimosa Belta” duo. One of them The recorded CD includes ancient Greek, Sephardic and Turkish songs composed and/or arranged by Stefan Hakkenberg, Feliu Gasull i Altisent, Helmut Jasbar, Mikis Theodrakis and Dušan Bogdanović. One of her other chamber music projects is the collaboration with Lorenzo Coppola (clarinetto d'amore) and Farran James (baroque violin). Young's most recent recordings include Laura Young Solo (Clearnote), La Belle Excentrique (Artelier), Juegos del Viento (GHA), Lagrimosa Belta with mezzo-soprano Frances Pappas, and the forthcoming solo album “Laura Young plays Max Reger”. In her doctoral thesis at Leyden University, the focus of her work was: “Enhancing musical expressiveness on the classical guitar through the interpretation of selected works from Max Reger's solo cello and solo violin repertoire; translating musical connections from the expressive interpretive traditions of the voice, violin and cello for performance on the classical guitar.”
