About Lauren
Lauren Vilendrer grew up in a musical family and experienced firsthand from a young age the joys of playing and teaching music to bring people together. Lauren began playing oboe in her middle school Concert Band in her hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota, but truly fell in love with the instrument once… she reached high school age. She is an alumna of both the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies and the Minnesota Youth Symphonies programs. She was a recipient of the John Philip Sousa Band Award in 2019 by her high school, Mounds Park Academy.
Lauren obtained her Bachelor of Music degree from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where she was taught oboe and English horn by Dana Maeda and played in the St. Olaf Orchestra, St. Olaf Band, St. Olaf Philharmonia, Synergy Musician’s Collective chamber orchestra, and many different chamber groups. She was incredibly lucky to get the opportunity to tour with the band and orchestra six times, both nationally and internationally, to destinations in the Midwest, California, the Pacific Northwest, and Japan! She was awarded both the Presidential Academic Scholarship and the Christiansen Music Scholarship, and made the Dean's list each semester.
After graduating Magna Cum Laude from St. Olaf College in May of 2023, Lauren moved to Bloomington, Indiana the following August where she began pursuing her Master of Music (2025), Performers’ Diploma in Solo Performance (2026), and Doctor of Musical Arts (est. 2029) degrees in oboe performance at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she has maintained a 3.99 GPA across degrees. Lauren is extremely grateful to have received the Artistic Excellence Award and Graduate Tuition Award for each of her years at Jacobs. For her first two years in Bloomington, Lauren took oboe lessons with Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra English horn player Roger Roe, but currently studies oboe with Linda Strommen following Mr. Roe’s retirement in 2025. Linda Strommen and Associate Professor of Oboe Dr. Jessica Warren also instruct her in weekly masterclasses, étude classes, reed classes, pedagogy classes, auditioning classes, and more. During her time in Bloomington, Lauren has played principal oboe and English horn in the Indiana University Wind Ensemble and Concert Orchestra, as well as English horn in the Indiana University Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra, and Symphonic Band. Lauren has also served as a long-term English horn substitute for the Symphonic Band and the Concert Band. She additionally plays English horn in the Conductors’ Orchestra and oboe in the Graduate Wind Conducting Seminar at Indiana University, both paid graduate positions at the Jacobs School of Music. Lauren’s chamber music ventures at Indiana University include two oboe trios, three woodwind quintets, an oboe, bassoon, and piano trio, and an oboe and harp duet.
Lauren has had experience teaching oboe since her senior year of high school in 2018, where she was a youth mentor for one of her youth orchestras’ younger ensembles. She sat in on rehearsals and conducted sectionals within the oboe section, giving feedback to her younger peers and demonstrating professional orchestral etiquette. In the summer of 2022, she served as a summer rehearsal assistant for the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies, where she again sat in on rehearsals but also gained experience in communicating with students and families in a musical context, as well as creating structured musical activities. After gaining experience in teaching oboe lessons in multiple undergraduate and graduate oboe pedagogy courses, Lauren applied these skills to teach technical proficiency abilities to four college sophomore students in weekly, hour-long lessons over the course of the 2025-2026 academic year through the medium of an Independent Study course on Advanced Oboe Pedagogy. Lauren has a great passion for teaching and watching her students grow technically and musically while still preserving their motivation to play, and is experienced in teaching oboe, English horn, and reed making. She dreams of teaching her own collegiate oboe studio one day, but also hopes to continue performing oboe and English horn in an orchestra and maintaining a private home lesson studio throughout the course of her career. In addition to music, Lauren loves creating visual art, reading, cooking, bicycling, exploring nature, and spending as much time as possible with her loved ones.read more
