Accompanist, Associate Conductor, and Composer-In-Residence

Laura Hawley is an Ottawa-based music educator, conductor, accompanist, composer, and church musician. She is the founding artistic director of Hypatia’s Voice Women’s Choir, is the accompanist, associate director, and composer-in-residence for the Cantiamo Girls Choir and Training Choir, and accompanied the Ottawa Children’s Chamber Choir from 2008-2011. Ms. Hawley is Director of Music at St. John’s South March Anglican Church in Kanata.  In 2014 and 2016, Laura was nominated for the prestigious “Leslie Bell Prize for Choral Conducting” through Choirs Ontario and the Ontario Arts Council.

Laura is a faculty member at the University of Ottawa School of music where she teaches and coordinates the solfège program. She is also an Associate Performance Faculty Member (classical piano) and Contract Instructor (conducting, theory) at Carleton University, School for Studies in Art & Culture (Music) and is a member of the Ontario Registered Music Teachers’ Association and teaches piano, theory, harmony and history in her studio. Laura has worked as a guest conductor and clinician with groups including the Music and Beyond Festival, Suzuki piano school, Harmonia Choir, Ontario Youth Choir, and CAMMAC choirs and orchestras, and teaches yearly at the Deep River Summer Music Camp.

Laura’s compositions are commissioned and performed internationally, especially after December 2014 when a video-recorded premiere of her work “Alhamdoulillah” went viral on YouTube with the title “Welcome to Canada Syrian Refugees.” One of her commissioned works, “Au champ d’honneur,” is performed annually on national broadcast at the Remembrance Day Ceremony at the National War Memorial and was arranged for carillon in 2011 and performed on Remembrance Day on the Peace Tower Carillon. Laura’s pieces are published by Rhythmic Trident Music Publishing.

Ms. Hawley holds an ARCT from the Royal Conservatory of Music and completed a Bachelor of Music in piano performance and Master’s in music theory at University of Ottawa.