Laufer was director of the Setnor School of Music at Syracuse University, a position he has held since 2019. From 2017 to 2019, Laufer was director of the School of Music and associate professor of piano at Western Carolina University. In 2014, he co-founded and became a partner of the Tacitus International Consulting Group and, prior to that, was the dean of music at the New World School of the Arts at the University of Florida. Laufer also worked as an assistant and associate professor of fine arts, respectively, at Peace College from 2001 to 2011.
Laufer earned his bachelor’s degree in piano performance at the University of Michigan. He went on to earn the master of music and doctor of musical arts from Rice University. His piano studies began at the Music Center of the North Shore (now the Music Institute of Chicago) and at the Gnessin Institute in Moscow. He also completed some undergraduate studies at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music.
He is a voting member of both the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and the Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He is also a member of the Association of Fulbright Alumni, the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame, the College Music Society and the National Association of Schools of Music, for whom he serves as a visiting evaluator and regional vice chair.
