Sara Laimon

Department of Performance (Schulich School of Music)

Schulich School of Music

Biography

Pianist Sara Laimon is an active performer in both solo and chamber music. She has performed in Canada, the United States, France, Japan, Mexico, and Poland, and has represented the U.S. Information Agency as an Artistic Ambassador in India and Nepal. Sara is founding member and co-artistic director of the acclaimed New York based group Sequitur, a core member of Musicians Accord, and has been guest artist with numerous other ensembles. She is currently pianist for Ensemble Contemporain de Montreal. As a sought after performer of contemporary music, she has worked with such composers as Ligeti, Berio, Bresnick, and Kirchner, as well as performing and recording music of many emerging American composers. The NY Times has hailed her as "a commanding and confident player with a strong technique and an ability to find the drama and wit in works that often had daunting surfaces”, and described her 2001 live performance of 1940’s American music as having “a sense of knowing exactly where she wanted to go: music-making as intelligent as it was technically proficient.” In addition to her work at the piano, Sara has performed and recorded on the Harpsichord. She studied with Harpsichordist Arthur Haas during Doctoral Piano studies at SUNY Stony Brook and has performed and recorded contemporary repertoire of Elliot Carter on the Harpsichord. Ms. Laimon has recorded for CRI, Capstone Records, North/South Recordings, MODE records and Albany Records. Her most recent solo CD on Albany Records features American Music from the 1940’s with music of Bernstein, Carter, Foss. Kirchner and Ruggles. She is a frequent performer on CBC and has also been heard on radio broadcasts from summer performances at Marlboro, Tanglewood and Banff. Local audiences will be familiar with her performances on the CCA series, CBC/McGill and the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival. Born in Vancouver, Sara is a graduate of the Vancouver Academy of Music, the University of British Columbia, Yale School of Music and SUNY Stony Brook where she received a DMA under Gilbert Kalish. Ms. Laimon was a member of the piano faculty at the Yale School of Music (1990-2000) and the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg (2000-2001) before joining the Schulich School of Music at McGill. She lives in Montreal with her husband and two daughters.