Harp

Biography

BMus – AMusA – ATCL

Laura Winter began her musical journey by starting piano lessons at age seven. She was a quick learner and loved playing copious amounts of repertoire in every style available! However, she was looking for something more unique that gave her a chance to play in groups with others. Laura started studying harp under Julie Raines at age 10 and instantly fell in love! She began working as an orchestral harpist at 15 and in her short career has been privileged to play for conductors such as Benjamin Northey, Nigel Westlake, Johannes Fritzsch, Natalia Raspopova, Roy Theaker and Christopher Kopke. She was the Principal Harpist of the Monash Academy Orchestra from 2017-2019 and the Principal Harpist of the Heidelberg Symphony Orchestra from 2018-2022; she regularly performs with many community and semi-professional orchestras around Melbourne.

A passionate believer in quality music education, Laura loves working with young people to share the joy of music through teaching. She has been teaching since 2014 and her students have performed at community concerts as well as successfully completed exams. She previously taught harp at Genazzano FCJ College and is now teaching at Australian Christian College Casey.

One of her proudest achievements was performing both ‘Compassion’ and ‘Antartica’ under the baton of composer Nigel Westlake, alongside soloists Lior and Slava Grigoryan. Laura passed both her AMusA and ATCL exams in 2018 and graduated from the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music (Monash University) in 2019 with a Bachelor of Music, specialising in classical performance.