Emily Uematsu
Violin
Emily Uematsu started playing the violin at the age of four, and was accepted into The Juilliard School Pre-College Division at age eleven. She has collaborated with distinguished musicians such as Joseph Silverstein, Ani Kavafian, and Alex Kerr. She has performed in venues throughout Europe and the United States, including Steinway Hall in New York, the Łańcut Castle in Poland and Litomyšl Castle in the Czech Republic, Paul Hall and Morse Hall at The Juilliard School, Zankel Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Rose Hall at Lincoln Center, and the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. Emily has participated in numerous music festivals including the Sarasota Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Jascha Heifetz Symposium, Zenon Brzewski International Music Course, and Litomyšl International String Masterclass.
Most recently, Emily won the Parnassus Society award in Orange County, California, and will have a solo performance at Soka University in the 2016-2017 season. Emily has won other competitions such as the Chapman University Concerto Competition, the New York Summer Music Festival Concerto Competition, and the Hartwick College Music Festival. She was a finalist in the 2015 Mika Hasler Young Artist Competition as well as a top prize winner in the 2013 ASTA Solo Competition, Los Angeles Area Young Adult Division. She was a 2010 National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts (NFAA) YoungArts Merit Award Winner. Emily has branched out from classical music and played in several music videos, including one by the Dirty Projectors. She was also featured in Paris by Night, a Vietnamese Musical Variety Show.
In May 2016, Emily graduated from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University with a Master of Music degree in Violin Performance as a student of Paul Kantor . She was the recipient of the 2014-2016 Itzhak Perlman Endowed Scholarship Recipient in Violin. She studied with William Fitzpatrick at the Hall-Musco Conservatory at Chapman University in Orange, California, where she earned a Bachelor of Music Degree Magna Cum Laude in Violin Performance with a minor in film studies. At Chapman, she was awarded the first Henri Temianka Endowed Scholarship in Violin as well as the Warne Foundation Scholarship and Music Talent Award. Emily’s previous violin teachers were Dean Emeritus Stephen Clapp and Catherine Cho at The Juilliard School Pre-College Division. She has participated in master classes with Ruggiero Ricci, Joseph Silverstein, Ivry Gitlis, Sidney Harth, Aaron Rosand, and Itzhak Perlman.