I am Laurie Rubin, a home grown valley girl who was raised in Encino CA (yes, like the movie, “Encino Man”) which is a suburb of Los Angeles California. I migrated East for college at Oberlin College in Ohio and then to Connecticut for grad school at Yale School of Music. I never turned back because now I live in New York where I divide my time between singing, designing jewelry, and writing. I am a mezzo soprano, and I enjoy singing anything from Baroque to new music. In fact, both ends of that spectrum have a lot in common in that they often allow the voice to take on the color of an etherial instrument, and allow for all kinds of neat musical possibilities.
I’ve lived in NYC for five years now with my partner Jenny and two dogs Mark and Scooby. Jenny and I love New York for the infinite amount of things to do and food to eat. We’ve also enjoyed being entrepreneurs, and we co-founded a chamber music ensemble, Musique a La Mode (an ensemble dedicated to new and multi-media performance) with some of our friends/colleagues. To keep music fun, relevant to the social concerns of today, we’ve enjoyed creating all kinds of interesting concert programs including a celebration of women composers and visual artists, and a musical response to California’s Proposition 8, celebrating the music of gay and lesbian composers. There is an incredible treasure trove of music out there, so it’s so important to keep discovering and to avoid the pitfall of performing the same hits over and over again.
I also was asked to join in forming a Baroque chamber music ensemble called Callisto Ascending with another soprano, a gambist, and a harpsichordist. It is amazing to sing Baroque music with another female voice, and the organic sound of early instruments. Callisto Ascending has had some exciting opportunities to perform at Lincoln Center and at the New York Times Center.
I also freelance and sing a lot of chamber music and some new opera around the City. On occasion, I sing with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and with New York City Opera for their Vox Festival, showcasing the operas of up-and-coming composers.
I’ve enjoyed singing all sorts of music from Mozart to Brahms, Faurè to Ravel, and Barber to Bernstein, but I’ve discovered there’s really nothing like singing the work of a composer who is alive, and in the same room with you as you collaborate on a brand new interpretation of a piece. I didn’t discover this phenominon until very recently when I participated in a workshop with John Harbison and Dawn Upshaw who paired four composers with four singers. Together, each composer and respective singer worked on a brand new piece, and it was only then that the world of new music unfolded for me. I discovered a realm of expression I never before felt I had permission to delve into. Since that time singing “Target”, a piece by composer Keeril Makan about the aftermath of 9-11, I’ve had the sincere pleasure of working with many composers who have become wonderful colleagues and lifelong friends.
Being able to express myself through several media keeps me sane and grounded. A couple years after moving to New York, I began learning how to make jewelry by hand, and I’ll tell you, it is so important to have something to do to take me out of the emotional roller coaster of music sometimes. In addition, I began writing about my life as a blind singer, what it’s like to have to educate the sighted public about something they fear almost as much as death, and about the discrimination I face from time to time. This project has turned into a memoir I’m calling, “Do You Dream in Color” since my life is full of colors which I visualize and use in my jewelry and my music, and which I experience in life every day.