Assistant Professor Laura Roelofs

Described by critics as "brilliant" and "intensely expressive", violinist Laura Leigh Roelofs is equally at home in the chamber music and orchestral fields. She performed for fourteen seasons as Assistant Concertmaster of the Richmond Symphony Orchestra, and as a member of the Oberon String Quartet, artists-in-residence at St. Catherine's and St. Christopher's Schools in Richmond.

Since moving to Detroit in 2004 to join the full-time faculty at Wayne State University, Dr. Roelofs has performed regularly in solo and chamber music recitals both in Southeast Michigan and elsewhere, and she is currently in her fourth season as Assistant Concertmaster of the Michigan Opera Theatre. She is the founder and director of String Project@Wayne, a community music initiative in which undergraduate string players teach and mentor young string students.

Dr. Roelofs has served on the faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University and as Artist-Teacher of Violin at Georgia State University in Atlanta, where she was also a member of the Atlanta Chamber Players. She was a founding member of the Eakins String Quartet, winner of the 1987 Baltimore Chamber Music Awards Competition, and performed for several years with Currents, a Richmond-based contemporary music ensemble. She has appeared as soloist with the Baltimore Symphony and the Richmond Symphony, as well as orchestras in Colorado, Ohio, and Washington, DC. She holds performance degrees from Boston University's School of Fine Arts and the Catholic University of America.