Sara Laimon

Pianist Sara Laimon is an active performer in both solo and chamber music. She has performed in Canada, the United States, England, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and Poland, and has represented the U.S. Information Agency as an Artistic Ambassador in India and Nepal.  Sara is founding member and co-artistic director of the acclaimed New York based group Sequitur, former pianist for Ensemble Contemporain de Montreal, and has been guest artist with numerous other ensembles and festivals.

As a sought after performer of new music, she has worked with such composers as Ligeti, Berio, Bresnick, Kirchner, and Matalon as well as performing and recording music of many emerging composers. The NY Times has hailed her "a commanding and confident player with a strong technique and an ability to find the drama and wit in works that often had daunting surfaces”, and a performer with “a sense of knowing exactly where she wanted to go: music-making as intelligent as it was technically proficient.”

Ms. Laimon has recorded for Albany Records, Capstone Records, CRI, Disques XXI/21, MODE records, and North/South Recordings.  Her most recent CD (on Disques XXI/21) features the Horn Trios of Brahms and Ligeti with colleagues Jonathan Crow and John Zirbel.  She is a frequent performer on CBC and has also been heard on radio broadcasts from summer performances at Marlboro, Tanglewood and Banff. Local audiences will be familiar with her performances on the CCA series, CBC/McGill and the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival.

Current and former students of Ms. Laimon have been successful in competitions such as the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Prix d’Europe, Canadian Music Competitions, National Music Festival, and many are now teaching at Universities in Canada and the United States. 

Born in Vancouver, Sara is a graduate of the Vancouver Academy of Music, the University of British Columbia, Yale School of Music and SUNY Stony Brook where she received a DMA under Gilbert Kalish.  Ms. Laimon was a member of the piano faculty at the Yale School of Music (1990-2000) and the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg (2000-2001) before joining the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in 2001.  She has previously served as Piano Area Chair, Associate Dean, Academic and Student Affairs, and as Resident Faculty Fellow with IPLAI (the Institute for Public Life of Arts and Ideas).  Currently she is Director of the McGill Conservatory of Music.  She lives in Montreal with her husband and two children.