Laurette Goldberg Award

2026 Recipient: Lindsey Strand-Polyak

Lindsey Strand-Polyak has been a history nerd since she learned how to read. (Case in point, she taught her second-grade classmates that all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were named after Renaissance artists). When she realized that historical performance allowed her to combine her love of the past with her love of violin playing… the rest, as they say, is history. 

Today, she is a performer, director, scholar, writer, and community organizer. In particular, she has a fascination with the lives of professional musicians, and how they have managed to create meaningful careers for centuries in one of the world’s most bizarre professions. She holds a PhD/MM in Musicology and Violin Performance from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is Artistic Director of Los Angeles Baroque (which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2026), Director of the Pacific Northwest chamber music series Musique du Jour (also celebrating its 10th Anniversary in 26/27!), Education Program Director for the Baroque Music Festival, Corona del Mar, and Director of the San Francisco Early Music Society’s Baroque Workshop from 2023-2026. 

She has lectured on a vast range of topics from Hildegard to Heavy Metal, and has been featured in masterclasses and artist residencies at colleges and universities across the country including: University of Richmond, University of Southern California, Michigan State University, Montana State University, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, Sacramento State University, and University of Northern Colorado.

When not doing all that, Lindsey is continually exercising her beginner’s mind as a player on viols, and as a potter (@baroquenpottery). She splits her time between Whidbey Island, WA, and Santa Monica, CA.

Living in Los Angeles for so long, you’d think I’d have an award statement down pat— but I’m all thumbs and bashful as I write this. Thank you so much to Early Music America for this award, and recognizing me and the musical communities I serve. I’m honored every day that I collaborate with amazing administrators, artists and volunteers— who support each other, have fun, and are fantastic players and humans. AND we get to play amazing music together… You can’t ask for more than that, really!

Most professional performers I know went down the historical performance rabbit hole because it was so fun to play, not just listen to. Much of the music that we love and listen to today was intended to be primarily enjoyed by the doing. Everyone deserves an opportunity to have that kind of experience.

I started down this particular journey in early music because I believe that at the heart of strong Early Music communities are passionate players who want to enjoy and understand this performing tradition actively from the inside. I also believe that everyone, of any level, has something to offer. I’m inspired by the bravery that I see in someone’s desire to embrace being a beginner again. I have band members who are highly accomplished, award-winning professionals and academics, putting themselves out there, on an instrument they just started… having the courage to play it in public in front of 200 people. I am so grateful to witness again and again how this music of the past continues to create meaning in our present.

Thanks again to Early Music America for this award, and to everyone reading this, let’s go get musicking! – Lindsey Strand-Polyak

Past Recipients