Jens F. Laurson

Jens F. Laurson is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of the International Affairs Forum and a free-lance journalist. His work has been published in Forbes, the Financial Times, Baltimore Sun, Washington Examiner et al. He has written on classical music for the Washington Post, the Baltimore City Paper, and the Washington culture-blog ionarts. For (the now defunct) WGMS 104.4 he got to interview musicians like Iván Fischer, Anne Sophie Mutter, Marin Alsop, Leonard Slatkin, and Pinchas Zukerman. He is now the Classical Critic-at-Large for WETA90.9, Washington's Classical Public Radio station.

Jens grew up in a musical household, with a love especially for Bach instilled from an early age. That he could read notes before he could read letters lent (eventually disappointed) hope to the family that he might step into the footsteps of his harpsichordist Uncle whose vinyls of Scarlatti he grew up on. He joined the Regensburger Domspatzen --despite a distinct lack of Catholicism-- but did not pursue an active role in music thereafter. He is a musical omnivore and listens with equal zeal to anything from Renaissance to contemporary music, to opera, chamber, instrumental and orchestral music. A music library of some 6000 discs speaks to his general obsession, well over 200 Mahler CDs and nine complete Ring Cycles to more particular preferences. Jens can be contacted at jlaurson[at]ia-forum[dot]org