Lauren Jacobson

Versatile musician and creative visionary Lauren Jacobson works as a clarinetist, teacher, activist, and rad human to connect people across genres and places. Praised by the Washington Post for her radiant tone, her creative work has encompassed national and international engagements including four years with The President's Own United States Marine Band in Washington, D.C., the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra, the Oregon Symphony, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, the Colorado Symphony, the Verge Contemporary Ensemble, and currently holds the acting principal clarinet position with the Boulder Philharmonic. Lauren has toured extensively as a chamber musician with Vortex (woodwind quintet) and IndigoTwo (clarinet-piano duo), and has performed and taught as a chamber musician and soloist in Asia, Latin America, Europe and Canada.

Twelve years as Professor of Clarinet at the University of Northern Colorado and master class engagements at institutions including Rice University, Northwestern University, Indiana University, the Eastman School of Music, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Vanderbilt, and music festivals in the US and abroad allow Lauren to lean in to mentoring students on courageous artistry and creative and systematic practice. Lauren holds a Doctorate in Musical Arts from the Eastman School of Music.

An activist at heart, Lauren has engaged in numerous arts-based advocacy projects, integrating musical performance with visual art, storytelling, and scientific research to address issues of injustice, inequality, and marginalization within society. Collaborators have included non-profit founders, national grant recipients, scientists, conductors, musicians, writers, and storytellers. Current projects explore the intersection between the arts and environmental policy in “Radical Futures”, a storytelling project that brings to life alternative futures based on policy decisions for our planet. Raising awareness about musician health led Lauren to co-create Summit Musicians with colleague Dr. Stephanie Zelnick in 2022. The clarinet duo climb mountains and perform at the summit, including peaks above 14,000 feet. Lauren also curates musical responses to visual art, most recently at the Moody Gallery at Rice University in Houston, TX, where her lecture series and collaboration with students at Rice culminated in a live improvised musical response to Anri Sala’s “The Last Resort” art installation.

Outside of music, you may find Lauren training for her next trail ultramarathon, traveling in pursuit of good food, digging in the hard-packed Colorado clay soil of her veggie garden, or playing with her two young children.

For more information on Lauren Jacobsen, visit www.laurenjacobsenmusic.com