In October 2025 vocalist Laura Ann Singh released a singular record, the first to foreground her compositions. The album, Mean Reds, was released on the Richmond-based label Out of Your Head Records and features the Fracas Quintet. Singh and I first met in our first weeks as undergraduate students at the University of Richmond, and despite having performed together many times — and following her career closely since I left Richmond in 2005 — this latest record caught me by surprise. I’m grateful to her for accepting my offer to talk through the project for TRoS.
This week, on Thursday, October 22nd — almost one year exactly from the album’s release date — Laura Ann brings the Fracas Quartet to Barbés in Brooklyn for a performance the Mean Reds project. Tickets are $20 and available at this link. The following night, the group will perform at Firehouse 12 (with sets at 8:30 and 10pm) in New Haven, Connecticut. Tickets for that show are $20 and can be purchased here.
Our conversation, which happened in late June 2026, clocked in at over two hours! To make for easier navigation, I’ve broken it down with headings that correspond to the time-stamped chapters in the video. Here they are:
Each section highlights some of Laura Ann’s music and insights she shared. The whole interview, along with links to Laura Ann’s website and full discography, are included at the bottom of the post. Thanks for listening!
Early Career
A Career that’s Hard to Define
“I’ve just tried to keep working as much as I can. I like to challenge myself. I like to be involved in as many different styles as I can represent authentically… This record for me was a big step outside of that world.”
In 2025 Singh co-released Crumb of Me, an album of commissioned arrangements of songs by women composers, with the Rosette String Quartet. I’m highlighting “King,” by Florence Welch (of Florence + the Machine)…
On Learning..and Singing in Portuguese
“I really love language. I really love lyrics. As a singer I’m really drawn to that before even the music sometimes. The lyrical richness of Brazilian music just absolutely captured me and it started a love affair of 25 years til today.”
On her collaborative group Quarto na Bossa: “I learned a vast amount of Brazilian music and started a band called Quarto na Bossa. We performed locally and some in New York, [including] to open for some amazing Brazilian jazz musicians [who] crossover really well: Romero Lubambo, Duduka da Fonseca, Nilson Matta…”
Miramar
“Puerto Rican music is American music. Spanish-language music is American music. Salsa was born in New York. There are so many ways that the immigrant experience in the United States is so crucial and essential to some of the things that I love the most.”
Miramar’s first album was a tribute to the Puerto Rican composer Sylvia Reixach: “She passed away young. She was only thirty-nine but super influential.”
Miramar tours internationally. When I asked Laura Ann about meaningful moments from her travels with the group she shared this from the group’s tour of Russia: “When we toured Russia at the beginning of 2020, we learned a song by a woman composer named Aleksandra Pakhmutova. We learned it in Russian and then we translated it into Spanish. It’s this beautiful, bolero-style — bolero was viral before the Internet. And so, countries all over the world have boleros; and Russia is no exception. It’s a beautiful song…and people were so moved. It’s very poetic. People were crying hearing this song from their youth.” Here’s a recording of that performance…
Miramar’s latest album, Entre tus flores, was released in 2025 on the iconic Ansonia Records.
The Richmond Music Scene
“You can’t talk about Richmond and not talk about Doug Richards… There are so many people that are just giants; and they’ve devoted a lot of their careers to being educators… and I think that created this standard of excellence in Richmond.”
In 2023 Singh was the featured vocalist on the Doug Richard Orchestra’s Through a Sonic Prism: The Music of Antônio Carlos Jobim. (I reviewed the album for this site.) Singh described the record in this way: “I have a deep reverence for Brazilian music. I’m coming to the music very humbly. Doug just had this whole different [angle] which I found very refreshing. I love the concept [of the album’s title]. It moved me and [inspired] me to synthesize it in a new way through the filter of me and everything I’ve done.”
Working with Tomeka Reid
“She is dedicated to her music and has an incredible pedigree of people she’s worked with. But she’s absolutely down to earth. She has worked so hard and still wants to lift other people up.”
on her friend and collaborator, cellist Tomeka Reid
On Mean Reds
Origins, Inspirations, and Collaborators
“I was just trying to see what was inside of me. Influences… I have a billion… but between Ornette and Björk, that’s where I was coming from.”
Compositional Process
“I went into the studio with some loose sketches… but I trusted the players that I called. I think they have a great sound and, with some direction, I felt like they would understand what I was getting at… It’s like you take the first step and then the land appears.”
Highlighting Tracks
“I had a very Björk moment where I was sitting in a car. We were on an exit ramp, but it was backed up. And so the cars were sitting on the highway, still. And just the sound of the cars, rushing by me and then going to this god-forsaken exit with all of the terrible hallmarks of capitalism — the gas stations and Subways, and whatever there is — that just pepper this entire country. And I thought, ‘This sounds like a monster. Oh my God, this is terrifying. This whole experience is awful. This is supposed to be this iconic thing of driving on the American highway and it’s awful. It’s this death trap and people are just angry. It’s this encapsulation of everything that is [not] supposed to be there.'”
on the inspiration for “Highway Monster”
“I think it’s really dangerous to overlook the contributions of people who maybe won’t have some place in a history book because those are some of the most important contributions in my life personally, like my aunt. And my dad, he’s just this beautiful poet living the super-quiet life who basically writes for his family.”
“Do Not Remain” features lyrics by Singh’s father, who wrote them for his late sister, a visual artist
About her track “Before You’re Gone,” Singh shared another intimate reflection on how changes to long-standing relationships can affect us deeply: “I wrote this because, in my own life and in some dear friends’ lives, I saw [us wondering] ‘How do you honor and respect a life as someone slips away before their body dies? And honor the person that they were without diminishing what they’ve become?’ And I think that’s a very hard balance. So that’s where that song came from: from watching other people deal with that.”
On the Horizon
Audiences will be thrilled to know that there’s more to come from this ensemble: “I have recorded another record with the Fracas Quintet that is in the can. I wanted to do more. There was more to explore, I think, and I love working with those guys.”
He’s in his mid 70s and… undiminished by age in any way. His concepts and his playing are just as bright and exciting as they ever have been; and I’m very excited about the work I’m doing with him right now.
on recent collaborations with trumpeter John D’Earth
In my life I’m very fortunate to have some dear friends whom I’ve known for decades. Even though we’re not in constant contact, reconnecting with those friends usually takes no time at all. Laura Ann is one of those friends; and I think that connection is apparent in this conversation. And, while we have many years behind us, Mean Reds was such a revelation for me in part because my friend, whom I thought I knew quite well, shared a side of herself and her art that caught me totally by surprise. Like with my students, watching my close friends pursue and achieve their dreams is one of the great joys of my life. And so I’m thrilled to recommend this album to all of you.
Readers can find out more about Laura Ann, including info about her upcoming performances and full discography, on her website. Those in NYC area can catch her with the Fracas Quintet twice this week: on Thursday, October 22nd, at Barbés in Brooklyn ($20 tickets available here) and on Friday, October 23rd at Firehouse 12 in New Haven, Connecticut (tickets for both the 8:30 and 10pm sets are $20 and can be purchased here).
And for those of you in the Richmond area, stay tuned for more info about the April 2027 show when, for first time in 25 years, Laura Ann and I will share the stage together. At that concert she’ll be joining musicians from my long-term collaborative projects in the Canary Islands in a program that will feature the history of musical connections between the Canaries and Cuba.
As promised here’s the full, uninterrupted conversation…
