Oboist Lauren Williams is a performer and teaching artist passionate about connecting with others through music. As an orchestral musician, she has performed with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and New York City Ballet, and has played as a chamber musician in the Helsinki Festival, Kyoto International Music Festival, and most recently in São Paulo, Brazil, at the Brazilian British Centre. She holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, and a Master of Musical Arts degree from Yale School of Music. Upon graduation from Juilliard, she received the John Erskine Commencement Prize, presented to one undergraduate for outstanding scholastic and artistic achievement.

Lauren is committed to working towards equity and accessibility in classical music. She has worked extensively as a teaching artist with students in the New Haven and New York City public school systems, and partnered with community organizations to design/present music workshops for individuals of all backgrounds — for example, with Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) in New Haven, and at healthcare facilities across New York City as a Gluck Community Service Fellow at Juilliard.

Of Armenian descent, Lauren is keenly interested in researching/arranging works for oboe by Armenian composers, and was the recipient of the Mike and Mary Papazian Prize for the Performance of an Armenian Work in 2014. A 2010 Presidential Scholar in the Arts, she has spent summers at Tanglewood Music Center, Spoleto Festival USA, and was Acting English Horn/Oboe III of the Britt Festival Orchestra this year.