Anne Laver

Described by Fanfare magazine as a “complete musician, totally adept and utterly stylish in everything she plays,” Anne Laver maintains an active career as concert organist, scholar, and pedagogue. She has given organ concerts in Europe, Scandinavia, Africa and across the United States and has been a featured recitalist at conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the Organ Historical Society, the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies, and the Göteborg International Organ Academy (Sweden). In 2010, she was awarded second prize in the AGO National Young Artist Competition in Organ Performance (NYACOP). Anne’s debut recording, “Reflections of Light” (Loft, 2019) received favorable reviews and has been aired on nationally syndicated radio programs, including WXXI FM’s With Heart and Voice and American Public Media’s Pipedreams.

Anne is a versatile musician, equally at home on antique and modern organs. Her programs are tailored to the specific organ at hand and center around themes ranging from the art of variation in seventeenth-century Germany, to music of women composers, to organ music with live dance. An advocate for new music and diversifying the organ repertoire, Anne has worked with composer Natalie Draper to offer programs for composers who want to write for the organ, and has given world premieres of works by Draper, Eric Heumann, Jordan Alexander Key, and Ivan Božičević.

Anne is passionate about advocacy for the organ and the encouragement of young organists. In her appointment as Associate Professor of Organ and University Organist at Syracuse University’s Setnor School of Music, she helps educate the next generation of organists and church musicians. She also serves as artistic director for the Malmgren Concert Series at Hendricks Chapel, coordinates the annual Arthur Poister Competition in Organ Playing, and hosts educational programs for youth in collaboration with local chapters of the American Guild of Organists. Anne has taught and led outreach programs at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, most recently serving as Visiting Professor of Organ from 2020-2022. She has also chaired national committees for the American Guild of Organists, the Organ Historical Society, and the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboards.

As a scholar, Anne’s research interests focus on organ music at the nineteenth and twentieth century world’s fairs. Her articles have been published in the Journal for the Society of American Music, The American Organist, and Vox Humana. She is also a contributor and expert advisor for a soon-to-be-released open access online organ encyclopedia edited by Kimberly Marshall and Alexander Meszler. She has been able to involve student research assistants in her scholarship with the help of Syracuse University’s Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagement.

Anne Laver studied organ with Mark Steinbach as an undergraduate student at Brown University and spent a year in The Netherlands studying with Jacques van Oortmerssen at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. While pursuing masters and doctoral degrees at the Eastman School of Music, she studied with Hans Davidsson, William Porter, and David Higgs.