Featured solo violinist Michelle Abraham. Photo courtesy Jennifer Abraham.

Violinist Michelle Abraham, one of Connecticut’s most exciting young violinists, is quickly becoming known as an accomplished solo, chamber, and orchestral musician. She has received outstanding praise for her studies and performances with the Emerson String Quartet, and her orchestral performances under conductors including Peter Oundjian, Larry Rachleff, Daniel Hege, and George Manahan.

An active chamber musician in and around the New York area, Ms. Abraham is a member of the Metropolitan Chamber Players, and has performed and coached with members of the Emerson, Takács, Ying, and Cavani String Quartets. As a recipient of the 2008 Ridley-Tree Endowed Full Fellowship, she performed at the Music Academy of the West, where she worked with acclaimed chamber musicians Peter Salaff, Donald Weilerstein, and Joseph Kalichstein. Collaborations at Yale have allowed her to coach with the outstanding Claude Frank and Peter Frankl, both of whom have inspired her to pursue piano and string chamber music. Previously, Ms. Abraham spent her summers studying chamber music at the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival, LyricaFest, the Manchester Music Festival, and the Quartet Program.

Ms. Abraham has been featured as soloist with the Farmington Valley Symphony Orchestra, the North Shore Symphony Orchestra, the Stony Brook University Orchestra and the Connecticut Youth Symphony. In 2003 Ms. Abraham was named Best Classical Soloist in the high school division by Downbeat Magazine, and has received honorable mentions in various concerto and string competitions throughout Connecticut. She has been invited to perform in master classes for such renowned soloists as Chee-Yun Kim, Soovin Kim, Pamela Frank, Joseph Silverstein, and Zvi Zeitlin.

In addition to performing, Ms. Abraham is a passionate violin teacher and mentor. She teaches several students at the undergraduate level through Yale’s program for non-music majors. She has also worked with the MERIT Program at Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara and the Elementary School String Program in West Hartford, Connecticut to educate and inspire young students on their string instruments.

Recently, Ms. Abraham has been involved in the Emerson String Quartet’s latest recording, Bach Fugues. Her role in transcribing arrangements of fugues from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier made it possible for the Emerson Quartet to have legible copies of the music from which to record. The Deutsche Grammophon recording was released in March, 2008.

Ms. Abraham received her undergraduate training at Stony Brook University where she studied with Philip Setzer of the Emerson String Quartet, and Pamela Frank. She now studies with Ani Kavafian at the Yale School of Music, where she is completing her Masters degree in Performance. A native of West Hartford, Ms. Abraham now resides in New Haven, Connecticut.