Raised in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Auer didn’t begin singing until just six months before her teacher suggested she audition to study voice in college. She was no stranger to classical music, having played viola in orchestra since childhood, but with no formal vocal training, she famously showed up to her audition as the only one in jeans and could only read sheet music for the viola—yet still earned a place in Pennsylvania State University’s prestigious Vocal Performance program. There, she quickly gained a reputation as a “Ferrari” for mastering vocal technique at an extraordinary pace, though her artistic curiosity led her far beyond the traditional opera stage. She sang nightly in a rock cover band, two a cappella groups, and quietly began building a parallel career as a recording session singer. To this day, Auer’s voice is featured on over 50 commercial albums and three original off-Broadway soundtracks.

In 2012, she signed her first original band, Soul Kitchen Collective, to House Records, which propelled her to begin writing songs for herself as a solo artist. In 2014, performing under her family name on her mother’s side, Laura Promiscuo, she released her debut album Chasing Down the Dream, won The Philadelphia Songwriters Contest, and toured nationwide through 2016. A move to Los Angeles led to collaborations with three-time Grammy-winning producer Tim Sonnefeld, who crafted her pop songs with mid-tempo world-beat percussion and dark, cinematic strings, coining her genre-blending orchestral pop sound as “popra.” Auer cites artists like Sting, Sade, Bond, and Ofra Haza as major influences for her work at this time.

A pivotal moment came in 2018 when the executive producer of Disney’s Mulan expressed interest in featuring one of Auer’s original songs in the live-action film’s soundtrack. Though the studio ultimately went in a different direction for the title track, it sparked a new creative era for Auer; she began writing more songs in a “Disney-esque” style and partnered with composer Jaron Samuel to form the songwriting duo Jaron & Auer. Together, they developed an original animated musical feature based on Auer’s voice and personal journey, for which she then wrote the screenplay and recorded the lead character—launching her as an exciting multi-hyphenate with ongoing work in music-driven storytelling.

A quieter yet equally transformative moment came during the pandemic, when Auer realized a crucial part of her artistry had been missing—her classical soprano voice. She returned to her roots, training with Maestra Capucine Chiaudani of Italy’s Mediterranean Opera Studio, and rediscovered the bel canto singing style: a lyrical, light, and beautifully expressive Italian tradition. This epiphany became SEASONS, a four-part album series highlighting her newly refined vocal elegance with fresh arrangements of both traditional operatic repertoire and popular covers.

The results have been electric. Spring led to international stages, including a multi-month residency with Taiwan’s premiere Evergreen Symphony Orchestra for Disney’s Fantasy Symphony Live Tour. Summer debuted at #8 on the U.S. Billboard Classical Crossover chart, featuring collaborations with acclaimed artists such as Boyd Meets Girl and operatic tenor John Riesen, who now costars with Auer in their new live touring show (detailed below). Autumn unveiled a lyrical reimagining of the Irish classic “Carrickfergus” alongside renowned Celtic flutist Michael McGoldrick, and Winter—the series finale featuring her most popular track to date, a cover of “In Dreams” from The Lord of the Rings—has earned Auer over one million Spotify streams.

Now gaining recognition as “the voice of pop-classical for today’s mainstream audiences,” Laura Auer stands at the intersection of opera, pop, world music, and film—as an artist who has always paved her own way. She brings audiences along on this journey in her new live duo concert experience, Aria Nouveau (-an ode to her personal appreciation for “art nouveau”) with tenor John Riesen, featuring duets from her SEASONS album series. Reviews are in, and the duo is set to dazzle audiences on tour across the U.S. in 2025 and 2026.

Current as of September 12, 2025