Laila Salins grew up just beyond the skyline of New York, with the rich Latvian heritage of her parents who emigrated to the United States after WWII. After early piano studies and guitar lessons she soon discovered her deeper passion for singing. For many years she was involved with Latvian folk music before going on to study classical music, with a deep interest in contemporary music, avant-garde theater and world music (especially Indian classical music and flamenco), in addition to occasional forays into the world of art-rock. She later became involved in opera and chamber music, and has since then performed as a soloist throughout the United States, Canada, England, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Latvia and Australia and has sung premieres of many chamber, orchestral and music theater works.

Laila has been active as an interpreter of contemporary chamber music, most recently as the co-founder and vocal soloist of the Ecliptica Ensemble. She has performed with the Zurich Opera, the Latvian National Opera, the New York Opera Ensemble, Opera Factory Zurich, Connecticut Grand Opera, and the Music Theater Group of New York. Ms. Salins has starred in the premieres of many new American and Latvian operatic and musical theater works, including Michael White's Diary of a Madwoman, Love and Science by Richard Foreman and Stanley Silverman, and Tango Lugano by Dace Stauvere and Banuta Rubess. She was a founding member and musical collaborator in the Latvian folk ensemble Kolibri and the original music group Ballistic Cabaret. She is co-author of the music theater piece, The Incredible Adventures of Champagne Charlie, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and produced by the O'Neill Music Theater Conference. In 2006 she created Insomnia/InSexton, a multi-media piece based on the life and poetry of Anne Sexton, for which she composed the music, performed at 3LD Art & Technology Center in NY as part of the HERE festival of new works. She is a recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, CEC ArtsLink, The Experimental Television Center, and the American Latvian Association‘s Cultural Foundation. She has taught voice and chamber music classes at SUNY at Stonybrook, the University of Western Florida, the Summer Music Institute in Ogreh, Latvia, and Music in Chappaqua, New York. Laila is a gradute of the New England Conservatory in Boston and SUNY at Stonybrook. She currently splits her time between New York and Western Mass.

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