Emily Deans, Viola

Biography

After claiming first prize in the 2009 Washington International Competition for Strings, and second place in the 2008 Primrose Viola Competition, Emily Deans is building a strong reputation as a compelling performer of unmannered emotion and remarkable facility. Her virtuosity also brought her the Primrose Prize for best Primrose transcription, and she was the only finalist in the Washington Competition to receive the Audience Award. Other recent accomplishments include fourth place in the 2008 Irving M. Klein International String Competition, and a Presser Foundation Award from the New England Conservatory. Emily collaborated in ensembles with Ronald Thomas, Atar Arad, and Pamela Frank in the Caramoor Rising Stars series, and looks forward to a busy season of traveling and performing, including an appearance at the Olympic Music Festival with Alan Iglitzin, Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove, and the 2010 Musicians from Ravinia's Steans Institute Tour with Miriam Fried.

Emily began her musical studies in Dallas at the age of five, and began taking lessons with Emmanuel Borok, concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony, just two years later. She would make her Meyerson Symphony Hall debut shortly after, and at thirteen she made her first solo appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra. In the fall of 2000 she returned to perform with them under the baton of Wolfgang Sawallisch, and she has soloed with the Disney Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra on national television and performed in the Library of Congress. Also an enthusiastic chamber musician, her quartet attended the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar in 1998, and she has performed in ensembles with David Geber, Joseph Silverstein, Timothy Lees, Barbara Westphal, Timothy Eddy, and Miriam Fried, among others.  She has attended numerous chamber music festivals, including Kneisel Hall, the Taos School of Music, and the Ravinia Steans Institute, and she returned to IMS Prussia Cove in the spring as a student of Steven Isserlis.

Emily is a recent graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she received a Bachelor of Music degree in violin and viola as a student of Arnold Steinhardt, Pamela Frank, and Joseph de Pasquale, and she will be returning to the New England Conservatory of Music in the fall to pursue a Doctor of Musical Arts degree with Kim Kashkashian. Previous teachers include Emanuel Borok, Robert Lipsett, Robert Chen, Judith Ingolfsson, and C.J. Chang, among others. She has also worked extensively with many distinguished artists, including Peter Wiley, Michael Tree, Roger Tapping, Leonidas Kovakos, Joel Krosnick, Ronald Copes, Lucy Chapman, Seymour Lipkin, Bonnie Hampton, Joseph Kalichstein, Jaime Laredo, Atar Arad, Thomas Riebl, Martha Katz, and members of the Borromeo, Shanghai, and Brentano quartets.