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Violinist Laura Kobayashi leads a varied career as a performer and pedagogue.  A native of Seattle, Washington, she has been performing in chamber ensembles across the United States since the age of 13.  She is currently a member of the Kobayashi/Gray Duo and the Main Street Chamber Players and continues to actively perform as a chamber musician throughout the United States.  Significant U.S. performances have included appearances at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina; the Embassy of Bulgaria and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.; Merkin Concert Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York City; Gindi Auditorium in Los Angeles; Detroit Institute of Arts and the Chicago Cultural Center. Abroad as a chamber musician, she has performed in Wales, Norway, Thailand, South Africa, Argentina, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and Brazil and the islands of Trinidad, St. Lucia, and Puerto Rico.  In addition, she has recorded two compact discs of music by women composers for the Albany Records label and has edited for publication a violin sonata by 19th Century French woman composer, Marie Grandval, for Hildegard Publishing Company.  

Dr. Kobayashi studied violin with Dorothy DeLay, Paul Kantor, Andrew Jennings and Denes Zsigmondy and has performed in the master classes of Nathan Milstein, Arthur Grumiaux, Ruggiero Ricci and Gyorgy Pauk.  Chamber music studies have been with members of the Juilliard, Tokyo and American String Quartets as well as with collaborative pianists, Robert McDonald and Samuel Sanders. Dr. Kobayashi earned degrees from The Juilliard School and Yale University and the Doctor of Musical Arts from The University of Michigan.