by Stephanie Manning
It was only “A Matter of Time” before Laufey had the Blossom Music Center audience hanging on to her every word. And that was practically no time at all.
The singer-songwriter’s August 7 performance with The Cleveland Orchestra packed the venue with her adoring fans — many of them wearing her trademark items like dresses and hair bows — whose cheers rose up the moment the lights dimmed.
Ahead of the August 22 release of her third album, A Matter of Time, the Icelandic-Chinese artist brought her “A Night at the Symphony” tour to Cuyahoga Falls on a temperate Thursday evening. The sparkling, emotionally vulnerable performance thrived on her star power, bolstered by The Cleveland Orchestra and conductor Ross Jamie Collins.
The orchestral palette is familiar territory for Laufey (pronounced LAY-vay), a classically trained musician who grew up between Reykjavik and Washington, D.C. Her wistful, crooning voice also draws influence from pop and jazz, the latter most identifiable in the daydreaming “Like the Movies” and the layered harmonies of the opening “Dreamer.”
All evening, her voice projected splendidly through the venue without overpowering the elegant orchestral playing. While lush strings and harp are at the center of this music — like in the sentimental “Bewitched”— the brass added their own color in selections like “Lovesick” and “Falling Behind.”
Collins kept things together smoothly and unobtrusively from the podium, even if tempos pulled apart a little in some of the slower numbers. During “Fragile” and “Let You Break My Heart Again,” Laufey often dropped to the back of the beat as she lingered over the melancholic lyrics.
After intermission, she sounded uncharacteristically strained during “California and Me” before explaining she had gotten a cracker stuck in her throat. After some quick sips of water, her voice recovered without further incident.
The performance’s musical throughline took precedence over any narrative — the setlist quickly flipped back and forth between songs about pining (“From the Start”), anger at an unreliable lover (“Tough Luck”), and wallowing in breakup sadness (“Promise”). Perhaps unintentionally, the most humourous pairing was the cheerful “Lover Girl” — which had the audience enthusiastically clapping along — immediately followed by “Bored,” a song about tiring of a relationship.
Principal cello Mark Kosower delivered a yearning solo in “Let You Break My Heart Again,” a nod to Laufey’s own training as a cellist. Throughout the evening, the musician showed her chops as a multi-instrumentalist, bringing out her own cello for “I Wish You Love,” accompanying herself on guitar for songs including “Silver Lining,” and gracefully playing piano during numbers like the breathtaking “Goddess.”
The program also acknowledged her various genre influences by including jazz standards like “It Could Happen To You” and “Every Time We Say Goodbye.”
Not all of Laufey’s songs center on romantic love, however. The nostalgic encore, “Letter To My 13 Year Old Self,” encouraged the singer’s teenage self to pursue her dreams in the face of challenges. And her unreleased song “Forget Me Not” was a love letter to her home country of Iceland, complete with some beautiful low register phrases in Icelandic.
As an exciting treat, the singer performed her latest song from A Matter of Time, “Snow White,” which had been officially released earlier that same day. As she somberly sang from the piano about the pressure society puts on women, many audience members turned on their phone flashlights and gently waved them in the air, creating an ocean of shimmering stars.
Laufey teared up as the audience gave her an ecstatic standing ovation, taking the opportunity to encourage her fans to attend more orchestra concerts and support the arts.
“I grew up playing cello and piano, and loving jazz music, and I always felt so weird,” she said. “You all have proved to me that there is so much love and so much space for all kinds of art in the world.”
Photo by Kevin Libal
Published on ClevelandClassical.com August 14, 2025.
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