Biography
Lauren is a transformational coach and multi-disciplinary performing artist currently straddling Montreal and Northern Vermont. She is the founder of Unfuck Your Life: Coaching for Colorful People Stuck in Black and White; but also happens to be a classically trained violinist. In a past life, she performed regularly with the Montreal Symphony and the National Arts Centre Orchestras. Now, she is more interested in artistic genres that allow her to tell her own stories; so that she can connect on a deeper level with her audiences.
She received her ARCT diploma from the Royal Conservatory of Music at age 17; and her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Music Performance from Indiana University and McGill University respectively. She has participated in a number of prestigious summer music programs, including the Verbier Festival Orchestra, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Beijing International Music Festival and Academy, Britten-Pears Orchestra, Toronto Summer Music Academy and Festival, Aspen Music Festival Academy Orchestra, Meadowmount School of Music, and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. She was also a violinist with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra for their 2010-2011 season, and has performed extensively with Montreal-based touring ensemble Collectif 9.
Since expanding from the classical music world into the realms of comedy, improvisation, storytelling, and electronic-acoustic music in 2017; Lauren has re-aligned with what she has always known she is meant to do. A fierce advocate for mental health, Lauren’s greatest passion is using her incredibly unique skill-set to inspire both her musical audiences and her coaching clients to re-connect with themselves; so that they feel empowered to heal emotional wounds and share their own stories with the world.
In 2018 she was the musical director for Kay Komizara’s “Riot: Theatre Improvised, Improv Theater-ised,” in which she improvised music on violin with collaborative pianist Eliazer Kramer for a completely improvised dramatic play. She co-created “The Score” with Vinny Francois; a recurring show for Montreal Improv Theatre’s 2018-2019 season where she performed sketch comedy as her alter-ego Anastasia Stradivarius von Labia (“undeniably the greatest violinist of all time.”) Miss Labia beguiled audiences with irreverent anecdotes and spectacular feats on the violin, in collaboration with long-form improv comedy. (More info on Miss Labia below…)
Lauren co-created and performed in “Under the Sheets” which debuted at the 2019 St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival. She and electronic musician Pat McMaster told autobiographical stories based on traumatic events from their childhoods, and then translated them into live original electronic-acoustic music. “With brave storytelling and top-notch musical performances, “Under the Sheets” is a concert unlike any other, an intimate celebration of human connection and the immeasurable power of music as a tool of self-expression.” –Montreal Theatre Hub.
During the 2020-2022 lockdowns, Lauren received a “Research and Creation” grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to write her first solo show, “You’re Not Alone: Music and Stories about Solitude.” During the research phase, she learned how to create electronic-acoustic music in Ableton so that she could perform her stories and music simultaneously. In 2023, she developed the show further at the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, as part of their “Musicians in Residence Program.” She has since decided not to continue with the project, but the work will no doubt trickle into future endeavors.
Lauren has performed stories as part of the Confabulation Montreal series; and stand-up comedy in Ladyfest Montreal at the Blue Dog Motel among other established comedy venues. Her favourite place to tell stories however, is on her ridiculous blog http://derollercoaster.com. She is probably most known for her writings on auditions, ie the problematic way in which symphony orchestras hire their musicians. She intends to compile these pieces—along with several unpublished memoirs about her experiences in the bizarre world of classical music—into a book called, “How (Not) to Win an Audition.”
Anastasia Stradivarius von Labia
Biography
Lauded for having a “tolerable sound” by the Hubbards Tribune’s Lisztians to Liszten For issue and having received equally tempered enthusiasm from critics for her solo album Whispers from my Heart, Madame Anastasia Stradivarius von Labia is undeniably the greatest violinist of all time.
Her swift path to greatness began at age 2 under the equivocating tutelage of her father, the great Benedict Vesuvianus von Labia. She graduated from Juilliard summa cum loudly shortly thereafter. She has dazzled audiences as soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, and the Cleveland-Lakewood Orchestra & Auxiliary Chorus Assembly to name a few; all prestigious orchestras both generously and coincidentally supported by large donations from her father’s trust.
She has collaborated with excessive amounts of extremely famous people such as Yo-Yo Ma, Sarah Palin and Nickelback; and has won top prizes at many prestigious competitions including the Sir Duke Piggleton International Violin Competition (2006) and the Monroe County Hot Dog Eating Contest (2011, 2012 & 2014).
Madame von Labia plays on a $5M Italian violin dating to 1731 that is asserted by local experts to have belonged once to the great antediluvian virtuoso Niccolo Paganini. She has laboriously bedazzled the instrument with approximately $1.7M worth in pink gemstones arranged in the shape of her cat, rendering it simultaneously priceless and impossible to resell.
