Cellist · MM, BM, CHM
An improvising cellist dedicated to creating new music that features the cello. Equally at home in classical repertoire and the worlds of jazz, folk, and improvisation — based in Lancaster, PA.
Laurie currently performs with her sister in the duo Abigail's Garden and teaches at the Penn Square Music Conservatory. She free-lances across the folk and classical worlds and has performed in cities and venues including Los Angeles, Miami, Seattle, Hawaii, New York, and Europe. She enjoys bringing music into retirement communities and hospice settings, playing for room-bound residents and giving concerts for groups large and small. Her newest musical venture, Quartet Harriet, performs indeterminate music with a string quartet.
She holds a Master of Music in Cello Performance from the University of Southern California, where she studied the advanced classical repertoire with Eleanor Schoenfeld, carrying on the traditions of Gregor Piatigorsky. She earned her Bachelor's degree in cello performance from the University of Miami, studying with Eugene Eicher, with chamber music coaching from Hans Jorgen Jensen, David Bekker, and Alice Schoenfeld. She has also attended the Creative Strings Workshop led by Christian Howes.
Her career has taken her through recording sessions and stage work with jazz great Ira Sullivan, performances with Melissa Manchester, Henry Mancini, the Harlem Ballet Theater, and Gloria Estefan's Miami Sound Machine, and a recording session on Jon Anderson's (of Yes) Christmas album. While living on Maui, she performed the Boccherini Cello Concerto with the Maui Symphony and played in the pop/jazz trio Chamber Jazz Maui. Since returning to south-central PA, she's performed with The Reese Project, Wyndfall, Susquehanna, and Azure Trio, and has opened for Gaelic Storm and Grey Eye Glances, among others.
A 180-year-old German cello, her primary voice for classical and Celtic/folk performance.
An NS Design 5-string electric cello, giving her the extended range to hold down bass lines.
Laurie draws on ideas from many teaching traditions, letting each student lead the direction of their study and guiding them toward the techniques and repertoire that fit their goals. She works with students of every level, on everything from advanced classical concerto repertoire to improvisation in folk, bluegrass, jazz, and Celtic music — and loves the particular curiosity adult students bring, wanting to know why something works rather than simply being told to do it.
She taught cello at the Lancaster Conservatory of Music from 1998 until its closing in 2020, and taught improvisation to young string players at Strings Excell Music Camp from 1998 to 2019. She has also taught string methods, private lessons, and pedagogy at Lebanon Valley, F&M, Messiah, and Millersville. As a Rostered Artist with the PA Council on the Arts, she presented sponsored residencies and performances in schools, and served as President of the Lancaster Summer Arts Festival, a non-profit spanning music, dance, photography, film, and children's events.
Laurie is as comfortable in the recording studio as on the concert stage. Her first professional gig, at 16, was filling in for her cello teacher on a folk singer's recording session — she was hooked from then on. She has more than 30 recordings to her credit as a band member and session player.
Before her husband, Tom Reese, passed away in August 2024, the two produced a catalog of more than 20 CDs and DVDs of original scores for silent films — a shared creative partnership, in life and in music, whose legacy continues through the recordings. You'll find them in the store.