Laura Grazyna Kafka appeared on CNN during "National Holocaust Remembrance Week" in May 2000 singing and telling her mother's story about being a forced laborer in Germany during World War II. She also played "a rich mom" on the television show "Young Americans" during the 2000 premier season. Laura was the American Council for Polish Culture's 1997 Marcella Kochanska Sembrich Award recipient and was presented in recital at the University of Toronto, Canada as part of the award. The Kociuszko Foundation sponsored her in a joint recital of Szymanowski's music at Carnegie Hall's Weill Hall in New York. She has appeared in recital numerous times at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, as well as at the American Center for Polish Culture in Washington, DC. The Philadelphia Chapter of the Kosciuszko Foundation sponsored her in a recital in Philadelphia. She participated in a televised interview, during which she also sang, as part of the Szymanowski Centennial at the University of Southern California and live radio interviews for which she also sang on WNYC in New York (broadcast live from the Kosciuszko Foundation), WVCG Radio Polonia in Miami, Florida, for the International Polonaise Ball in Miami, Florida and for the Ash Lawn-Highland Festival Mid Winters Eve in Charlottesville, Virginia under the sponsorship of Lady Blanka Rosenstiel. She has sung recitals in the United States and abroad, most recently in Washington, DC under the sponsorship of Mr. David Pothier.

Some of her outstanding engagements as soprano soloist include appearances with the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra in Orff's Carmina Burana, with the Fairbanks Choral Society in Mozart's Requiem and Rheinberger's The Star of Bethlehem. In North Carolina she sang the soprano solos in Britten's Ceremony of Carols and Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio with the Cumberland Oratorio Singers. She was soprano soloist in the world premier of the Holocaust Cantata with the Washington Singers under the direction of Donald McCullough at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. She had the honor of singing for the First Lady of Poland, Mrs. Jolanta Kwasniewska during her recent visit to the nation's capital.

Laura Grazyna Kafka has toured Europe, Alaska and California as guest soprano soloist with various individuals and organizations. Her opera appearances include engagements with Baltimore Opera, the Washington Savoyards and the Maytime Light Opera Company. Locally, she serves as soprano soloist at the Mt. Vernon Place United Methodist Church in Washington, DC where she has sung numerous soprano solos in various sacred works.

She presented a lecture-recital on Szymanowski's Rymy dzieciece [Children's Rhymes] at an international musicology conference in Zakopane, Poland devoted to the songs of Karol Szymanowski, on Szymanowski's songs at the mid-Atlantic regional conference of the College Music Society at the University of Richmond, and on Szymanowski's King Roger at the International College Music Society Conference in Berlin, Germany.

She has earned numerous academic achievements and awards. After earning her Associate of Arts degree from Monterey Peninsula College, she studied French at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey, California where her father was Professor of Polish. She completed her undergraduate education at Methodist College in Fayetteville, North Carolina where she was graduated "summa cum laude" with a Bachelor of Music degree in voice performance and a Bachelor of Arts degree in French. She won first place in the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) state-wide vocal competition in North Carolina while an undergraduate student. She went on to earn her Master of Arts degree in music in voice performance from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and her Doctor of Philosophy degree in musicology from the University of Maryland at College Park where she also studied ethnomusicology, voice and opera.

While a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland, she was a Graduate Fellow of the Research Center for Arts and Humanities, a two-time Kosciuszko Foundation Scholar and a four-time Maryland State Senatorial Scholar. She held a two-year graduate teaching assistantship in ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland and she also participated in the Maryland Opera Studio program under the direction of Leon Major.

Her dissertation research in Poland on Szymanowski's Król Roger was supported by the Polish Ministry of Culture and Art in Warsaw, Poland and by the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Washington, DC. Upon graduation from the University of Maryland, she was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship to Poland by the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX) where she continued her study of Polish music and culture. She published an article on the Polish dance ensemble "Mazowsze" for the Washington Performing Arts Society "Museletter" and her article on Szymanowski's Rymy dzieciece will be published in Poland later this year by the Polish Music Reference Center at the University of Southern California.

Her ultimate goal is to be a world renowned performing artist and educator. Dr. Kafka is on the full-time music faculty at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.

Reviews

The Shepherd College Picket, November 17, 1999, p.14, Shepherdstown, West Virginia: "Kafka stood with dignified posture in the bend of the grand piano...When she parted her lips we were always humbled. Kafka's mood shifted with each song. She beamed with amour, withered under rejection; she wagged a finger at the audience and reached out to embrace us. Sometimes she seemed to laugh through her words. Other times her singing had a chatty quality, as if the audience members were her girlmates whom she trilled to about a new love... At finis the applause was warm and lengthy. Kafka and Mauro performed an encore...The song was about a boy who finds a beautiful rose in a field. He says to the rose, 'I want to take you home; I will make you my queen.' That night Kafka was our rose."
- Justin Snead, Picket Staff Writer

The York College Spartan, November 3, 1999, p.8, York, Pennsylvania: "Laura Grazyna Kafka delighted our ears with her touching renditions."
- Linda Amos-Ganther