Schwendinger's UnSafe Commission Shadings, for the American Composers Orchestra, was premiered at Zankel Hall in 2012, and her Seven Choral Settings were performed there as well in 2013, by Trinity Wall Street Chorus and Matt Haimovitz, conducted by Julian Wachner.

Jenna Scherer wrote in her Time Out review of the work, "Laura Schwendinger’s piece for Footfalls is particularly effective, featuring stretches in which the musicians play their instruments so lightly, it could just be the autumn wind blowing through their strings.

The world premiere of the orchestral version of Artemisia by Trinity NOVUS with Christopher Alden, director and Lidiya Yankovskaya, conductor, featuring Augusta Caso, Heather Buck and Richard Troxell.

Corinna da Fonesca da-Wollheim, in the New York Times, praised the opera's treatment of "big themes...idea and form, image and projection, sight and gaze..with music of quivering intensity".

Rebecca Wishnia, in the San Francisco Classical Voice, described the opera as "sumptuous on every level," with a "striking" score","..a breathtaking piece of worry and longing...Most memorably, the music underscores Artemisia’s deteriorating vision.

The shadows are flat-sounding chords: impressionistic, but with a distinctly contemporary sensibility.” In OperaWire “Schwendinger’s score and Ginger Strand’s story not only casts its spell but awakens us again to the continuing conflict of men, women and art that has pervaded western history...The music challenges.

The violin writing, played with equal measures of energy and velvety richness by Jennifer Koh, is sometimes assertive and rhythmically sharp-edged, but those moments virtually always resolve into a sweetly singing line.

Mark Kanny of the Pittsburgh Tribune wrote, The absence of any visual entertainment for Schwendinger's Buenos Aires focused attention on the musical excellence of her hard-driving quartet for flute, bass clarinet, violin and cello.

She creates fresh and compelling lines that are brought together to a powerful climax.In her New York Times Playlist review of Schwendinger's Centaur CD High Wire Acts, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim wrote “in the works grouped together on this captivating disc… she sketches musical short stories of somnambulant fragility and purpose.” Beyond those already mentioned, Schwendinger has received honors from the Guggenheim Foundation,[15] the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the American Academy of Arts and Letters,[16] a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship at Bellagio, Yaddo Corporation fellowships (9), MacDowell Colony fellowships (11),[17] and the Bogliasco Liguria Conference Center, and artistic residencies at the Tyrone Guthrie Center, American Academy in Rome, as well as awards from the American League of Orchestras / New Music Alive, and awarded commissions from the Harvard Music Association, Fromm Foundation and an Opera America Discovery Grant; And was the first prize winner of the 1995 ALEA III International Composition Competition.