Gwen Laster

Gwen Laster (born 1957/1958) is an American violinist and composer. Born and raised in Detroit, she obtained her music degrees at the University of Michigan and performed as a jazz violinist. A 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, her work includes three albums, as well as a “Black Lives Matter Suite”. Biography Laster was born in 1957 or 1958 raised in a working-class family. She obtained her BM and MM at the University of Michigan. In 1992, she won the Cognac Hennessy Best of Detroit Jazz Search contest as part of the group Gwen Laster Featuring Larry Fratangelo. She released two albums through her own label Muffymarie: Sneak Preview (1996) and I Hear You Smiling (2004). In June 2006, she played for a concert at Somers High School raising funds for the Costa Rican refugee camp La Carpio. In 2008, she performed at a concert for the first inauguration of Barack Obama. Laster had been inspired to write the “Black Lives Matter Suite” of their album Blue Lotus by her experiences in police custody, where she recalled passing out and being traumatized with a near-death experience. while Haviland S Nichols of Chronogram called it proof that “black lives still matter”. During the COVID-19 pandemic in