Soprano  •  Musicologist  •  Educator

Laura Grażyna Kafka-Price is an American soprano of Polish heritage with a multi-dimensional career as a singer, musicologist, and educator. Her many public and private engagements in the United States and abroad include recitals, lecture-recitals, concerts with orchestra, oratorio, opera, operetta, musicals. She has performed at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Washington, DC in both public and private venues since 1993. These performances have received high praise and were presented in a variety of languages, including Polish.

Kafka-Price is an instructor of French at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University and maintains a private voice studio. She is also the originator and director of The Children’s Rhymes Project. The goal of this project is to teach non-Polish singers to sing the op. 49 song cycle Rymy dziecięce (Children’s Rhymes) for voice and piano, composed in 1922-23 by Karol Szymanowski to the poetry of Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna, in Polish. Please follow this link to watch “Sing Rymy dziecięce, op. 49 by Karol Szymanowski in Polish,” a 20-minute video presentation by Laura Kafka-Price and pianist Tomasz Robak featured at the 2020 Virtual National Conference of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS). Additionally, the Children’s Rhymes Project features an international illustration contest for children in grades 2 to 8. Please visit www.childrensrhymesproject.com to learn more about the illustration contest.

Her degrees include a PhD in musicology from the University of Maryland, College Park, a MA in voice from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and undergraduate degrees in voice performance and French from Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina; she also attended Monterey Peninsula College in her hometown in California. She holds an active, advanced professional teaching certification in vocal/general music in the state of Maryland, and a certification in Contemporary Commercial Music (CCM) from the Vocal Pedagogy Institute at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia.

Kafka-Price is a past winner of the Marcella Kochańska Sembrich Vocal Award from the American Council for Polish Culture (ACPC), the recipient of a Kościuszko Foundation scholarship, and she was an International Research and Exchange Board Scholar to Poland. In 2021, the ACPC honored her with its national Cultural Achievement Award for her “dedication to promote Polish music as a performer, scholar, and educator, and to make the language of Polish songs more accessible to performers and audiences.” Kafka-Price is Artistic Advisor and a scholarship committee member of the Polish American Arts Association of Washington, DC, and on the advisory committee of the ACPC Marcella Kochańska Sembrich Vocal Competition.

Dr. Laura Kafka-Price and her husband BG (USA, Ret.) George B. Price live in Columbia, Maryland.