Laura Bishop is an ARIA Award nominated composer, arranger, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. Born in Sydney to parents who immersed her in folk music from an early age, Laura studied piano from the age of 4, discovering a keen interest in composition as she progressed through her musical education. In 2000, as she started her tertiary studies in composition at the Sydney Conservatorium, she also worked concurrently as a music copyist for the Sydney Olympic Games on works by composers such as Elena Kats Chernin and Richard Mills, being present for the recording & performance of the music by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Games.

She conducted her work ‘Avivar’ for jazz orchestra on the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall stage for the HSC Encore concert in 1999, and since then has also conducted choral works on the Sydney Town Hall stage. Whilst completing her tertiary studies she composed for the Symphony Fellowship String Quartet (artistic director Carl Pini) and the Conservatorium Chamber Choir (director Neil McEwan), the latter work performed at the Verbruggen Hall in 2003.

Since completing her B.Mus. she has had a wide and varied musical career. She has composed for and performed with ARIA award winning ensemble Mara! & the Martenitsa Choir on both national and international stages, including WOMAD Reading & WOMADelaide, and sang as a soloist with them on the main stages at the Woodford Festival in 2011-12. She worked on the music for a video games developer for a year in the UK, and during her stay she sang with the London Bulgarian Choir, performing in their winning entry in the BBC Radio Choir of the Year Competition. She has performed with Indo Pacific drumming group The Rhythm Hunters to 25,000 capacity crowds on the Woodford Festival Amphitheatre stage at New Year’s Eve in 2009-10, contributed her solo vocals to multi-award winning animated short films The Rose of Turaida and Sneeze Me Away, was the arranger & vocalist on the multimedia project The Lumiphonic Creature Choir which has toured internationally and supported Grammy award winning artist Moby in New York, has arranged and orchestrated pieces for tenor David Hobson and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on recordings for ABC Classics, and over the course of a decade has worked in the music departments of 50 films with orchestration & music preparation credits such as Moulin Rouge, Babe, and Australia.

With Balkan/jazz fusion ensemble Chaika she composes, sings, plays percussion, accordion & piano, touring up and down the east coast of Australia, and producing three albums to critical acclaim, with their third album “Arrow” nominated for an ARIA Award for best World Music Album 2019. She has also written, recorded and toured an album of her own original songs with her sister Susie. Her various works have received airplay on ABC Classic Drive, Radio National, Fine Music FM and Triple J.

She also teaches piano, conducts choirs, and runs her own business performing solo shows at schools, Folk Music Around the World, where she plays accordion and sings songs she has collected from various cultures.