Lori Laitman is an American composer who has composed multiple operas, choral works, and over 300 songs. Life Laitman was born in Long Beach, New York, in 1955. Laitman has set texts by classical and contemporary poets (including those who were murdered in the Holocaust) in her compositions. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale College and received her MM from the Yale School of Music. Laitman has received commissions from the BBC, The Royal Philharmonic Society, The Grant Park Music Festival, Opera America, Opera Colorado, Lyric Fest of Philadelphia, Washington Master Chorale, Wolfgang Holzmair and Music of Remembrance. Laitman was featured on Thomas Hampson’s Song of America radio series and website and interviewed by him on the Idagio platform. The Yale School of Music presented her with the Ian Mininberg Distinguished Service Award at Yale Commencement on May 21, 2018. She is one of four composers on baritone Stephen Powell's 2021 Grammy-nominated CD American Composers at Play. Laitman has an extensive discography. Works Living in the Body This six-song cycle was commissioned and premiered through a Special Projects Grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Georgia Southern University, for Saxophonist Carolyn Bryan and soprano Sandra McClain. Set to poetry by Joyce Sutphen, Living in the Body explores themes such as grief, loss, the past, and their emotional toll on the body of someone looking towards the second half of their life. The cycle was composed between September 14t and December 3, 2001, and was premiered on March 7, 2002 at the North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference at the University of North Texas. This cycle is one of few existing for soprano and saxophone; a normatively unorthodox pairing in Western classical repertoire inspired by Laitman's real life friendships. The Scarlet Letter Laitman created the opera The Scarlet Letter based on the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was commissioned by The University of Central Arkansas through Robert Holden and the UCA Opera program, premiered there in November 2008 and received its professional premiere in May 2016 by Colorado Opera. The libretto is by David Mason. Huffington Post ran an interview with Laitman, and the May 2016 issue of Opera News had a feature about Laitman and The Scarlet Letter. Naxos released the CD in Aug. 2017. Performances took place at The University of Oklahoma in February 2022 and at Wichita State University in