Violinist Emma Frucht’s favorite way of communicating with the world has been music for as long as she can remember. A native New Yorker, she grew up in a musical family. Her mother is a violist, her father plays violin and piano, and her two younger sisters play cello and violin. Ms. Frucht completed her undergraduate studies at Harvard University, majoring in Art History with a focus on Modern and Contemporary Art. When graduating from Harvard, she received the Robert Levin prize for excellence in musical performance. Ms. Frucht recently finished her Master of Music degree at the Juilliard School. She was a recipient of Juilliard’s Kovner Fellowship, and studied with Naoko Tanaka and Daniel Phillips. Her other primary teachers include Lynn Chang, and Louise Behrend.
Summers immersed in chamber music have become a persistent habit for Ms. Frucht. Over the past decade she has been a fellowship student at the Aspen Music Festival, the Music Academy of the West, the Taos School of Music, and Yellow Barn. She has also been an artist at the Halcyon Music Festival, the Kyoto International Music Festival, and the Manchester Summer Chamber Music series in Ipswich, MA. Collaborating with countless artists, some recent partnerships have been with Natasha Brofsky, Jerry Grossman, David Hardy, Michael Kannen, Alan Kay, Seth Knopp, Thomas Kraines, Katherine Murdock, Heng-Jin Park, Daniel Phillips, Melissa Reardon, Roger Tapping, Jessica Thompson, and Marcus Thompson.
It was as a young musician at Juilliard Pre-College that Ms. Frucht first had the opportunity to sit concertmaster, igniting her passion for orchestral leadership. She has served as co-concertmaster and co-principal second violin of the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra, the Music Academy of the West Festival Orchestra, and most recently the Juilliard Orchestra. Her work as concertmaster has taken place under the batons of conductors such as John Adams, Federico Cortese, Gustavo Dudamel, Alan Gilbert, Gerard Schwarz, and Osmo Vänska. Ms. Frucht frequently performs with New York-based orchestras, including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New York Classical Players, New York Pops, and the Sejong Soloists.
A fierce advocate of new music, Ms. Frucht has had the pleasure of collaborating with many living composers. She participated in numerous premieres during her time at Harvard, and has since worked closely with composers such as Brett Dean, Laura Karpman, Steve Mackey, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw, and Jörg Widmann. Ms. Frucht has enjoyed giving many chamber music performances around New York City, most notably at Alice Tully Hall, Bruno Walter Auditorium, The Guggenheim Museum, National Sawdust, and Scandinavia House.
