Gabriel Weber
Staff writer
“From the Start,” Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Laufey has “Bewitched” listeners with her unconventional approach to musicality through the combination of traditional and modern themes.
The youngest person ever to win a Grammy in the category Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for her second album Bewitched, Laufey (pronounced “lay-vey”) is no stranger to unprecedented achievements.
“I used to think that was such a scary thing: that nobody had walked that trail before me,” she said to TIME Magazine after being named as one of their 2025 Women of the Year. “But I now realize that when you’re the one determining which steps to take next and which branches to pull to the side, that’s when you know you have something good on your hands.”
Laufey will perform not once, but twice this weekend in concert with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra at 8:15 p.m. Saturday and at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the Amphitheater. Upon her Saturday performance selling out almost immediately, Sunday was added as another chance to see the Icelandic star.
Guest conductor Ross Jamie Collins and Laufey are working together for the first time this summer, as Collins is on the road with Laufey for this six-concert tour — Chautauqua will host concerts three and four. They met in Iceland where Collins was conductor-in-residence for the Iceland Symphony Orchestra after one of Laufey’s shows.
“With Laufey’s music, it’s very easy to get hooked on it from the start,” said Collins. “The thing that I find most powerful and raw, which really moves me, is the authenticity behind it. It feels personal and very easy to relate to.”
Collins grew up with parents who are violinmakers and musicians; he began conducting at 14 years old and has fallen in love with it many times since then, he said. That moment when everything clicks together in the music is what really made Collins initially enamored.
“When the sound is there, and we finally get that, that’s the moment we’ve been trying to find our whole life — there’s power behind it,” Collins said. “We’ve been searching for it for so long that when we finally get there, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world.”
Senior Vice President and Chief Program Officer Deborah Sunya Moore finds the power in Laufey’s music to be through the connection it creates. She adores that both she and her daughters can crank up the volume to Laufey and love it.
“We had every expectation that her first concert would sell out quickly because she is so unique. She’s a phenomenon,” Moore said. “In addition to being a pop star, she is going to be specifically celebrated at Chautauqua as well. We typically have a pretty odd mix of fans when popular artists come here. We have single ticket sales from an artist’s fan base, but we also have sometimes up to 2,000 Chautauquans who will attend a concert, … not knowing much about the artist that they’re coming to see. What I’m excited about is I think Laufey is going to leave with thousands of new fans.”
The Icelandic-Chinese 26-year-old artist doesn’t consider herself a strictly categorizable musician and moves away from any one label; elements like pop, classical and jazz collide in Laufey’s innovative style. Initially, jazz fanatics attempted to box her in by claiming her art wasn’t true to the genre.
However, Laufey grew up surrounded by music with a classically trained violinist mother who performs with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and a grandfather who was a violin teacher at the Central Conservatory of Music in China. Beginning piano at 4 years old and cello at 8, Laufey first performed at 15 years old before going on to graduate from Reykjavík College of Music and Boston’s Berklee College of Music. It’s safe to say she knows what she’s doing.
“The fact that the jazz and classical worlds seem to struggle with the idea of an artist being both commercially successful and musically interesting — it breaks my heart a little,” Laufey said to TIME Magazine. “Why can’t I be both?”
Her career took off by singing jazz standards on TikTok, and Laufey leveraged social media to amass an army of fans with her musical and relatable content. She hosts various pop ups and meet and greets for her fans, nicknamed lauvers, as well.
“Growing up, I really struggled finding a group of people that I really understood and that understood me — whether that was coming from mixed cultural backgrounds, or having mixed interests that weren’t as simple as soccer or reading. The fact that I’ve kind of summoned an audience of exactly that — it just makes my younger self really, really happy,” Laufey said in an interview with Elle. “… I’ve heard so many stories of fans making friends with each other at concerts. It’s the best part of being a musician.”
While Laufey’s primary fan base is Gen Z, it’s only A Matter of Time before the later generations of Chautauquans spread the word. Her upcoming album of that name will feature even more daring combinations of genres in an imaginative expression of “a young woman unraveling,” she told Elle.
“I think we all present a very pretty version of ourselves to the world. This starts there, and then starts to dig in and show the darker thoughts and things that are within a woman. … It’s about this constant fight with keeping the outside pretty and the inside organized,” Laufey said to Elle. “As I’ve grown into this success, I really see how much of a role model I am for people, young women especially, and I never want to gaslight any young woman into thinking that everything is just so perfect.”
Her advocacy for young people led to her founding of The Laufey Foundation, which is a non-profit that gives grants and top-quality gear to youth music programs around the world to ensure aspiring musicians of all demographics can reach their full potential.
As Laufey grew up around the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the transition from TikTok to performances with symphony orchestras is not as jarring as one might expect. The sonic combination of the symphony with Laufey’s sound breaks barriers as to what is considered accessible for audiences and up-and-coming musicians.
“It’s a really special opportunity to not only hear Laufey, but hear her with a live symphony orchestra. I think the combination is going to be spectacular because her melodies are so beautiful. She is such an incredibly trained musician,” Moore said. “Not any artist that comes to Chautauqua can equally enthuse their fan base and our Chautauqua residents and patrons – she’s the one.”
Moore has every confidence that the audience will feel truly inspired and lifted by the concert experience.
“It’s gargantuan (that Laufey could come to Chautauqua and perform with the CSO). A dream come true,” Moore said. “It’s something that is so unbelievably wonderful that it was worth moving our beautiful Sacred Songs into the Hall of Philosophy, so we could both keep our traditions and open ourselves up to an experience that will be an unforgettable time together.”
Beyond entertainment, the audience should be prepared to be genuinely affected, Collins said.
“My job as a conductor and as a musician has always been to move people, create some emotion and to give the audience that goosebumps feeling,” Collins said. “What I felt (after concerts with Laufey in Virginia) I was reminded of how romantic life can actually be, and that’s something I would love for other people to feel after these concerts is just a reminder that life really can be this romantic and this special.”
