Emma Cifrino is a violist and violinist currently completing the DMA degree in viola performance, studying with Sally Chisholm, while also entering the PhD program in musicology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also an instructor of violin and viola at Beloit College. Emma began studying violin at the age of five with Betsy Kobayashi of the Pineland Suzuki School in Augusta, ME, and also took lessons on violin and viola with Steve Kecskemethy and Julia Adams of the internationally acclaimed Portland String Quartet. In 2012 she earned the bachelor of music degree in viola performance (cum laude) at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, where her principal teacher was Matthew Michelic. Emma completed her M.Mus degree in performance at Bowling Green State University in 2016. At BGSU she was a member of the graduate string quartet and served as principal viola in the BGSU Philharmonia. During her time in Ohio Emma was fortunate enough to work with many distinguished teachers and performers, including Caroline Chin, Emily Freeman Brown, Matthew Daline, and Samuel Adler. Emma maintains an active performance career, including freelance engagements with several regional orchestras in the Midwest. She has also appeared on the radio program “Live from WFMT” in Chicago with Lawrence professors Wen-Lei Gu and Anthony Padilla, and has performed at Early Music America’s Young Performers Festival with the BGSU Early Music Ensemble. Emma comes from a creative family: her father, Tony Gaboury, is a respected jazz guitarist, composer, and theorist who taught for many years at the Berklee College of Music in Boston; and her stepmother, Lori Austill, is an abstract painter currently making encaustic art.