Emma Wernig, viola

Scholarship holder since 2020

Born in 1999, German/Austrian violist Emma Wernig grew up in Los Angeles, California. Her musical education took her through the USA and Europe. She gained her bachelor’s degree at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles where she studied with the famous violist Paul Coletti. For her master’s degree she moved to Ettore Causa at the Yale School of Music in New Haven (Connecticut). Since 2021 she has been studying with Tabea Zimmermann at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin.

A prizewinner in many competitions, Emma received the ‘Barbirolli Prize’ at the 2019 Tertis International Viola Competition. As a result of winning the 2017 Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition, she released her debut album of rare Austrian Viola works on the Champs Hill label alongside pianist Albert Cano-Smit. The CD was published in April 2021.

She has been invited to famous festivals like the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Verbier Festival Academy and the Gstaad Menuhin Festival.

Several first prizes in chamber music competitions caused her to develop a great passion for chamber music and she has been influenced by working with great artists like Viviane Hagner, Lynn Harrell and Anthony Marwood. As a member of the “Sunrise Quartet” she won the North American String Quartet Competition’s “Recovered Voices Prize” which is awarded for outstanding performances of composers persecuted at the time of national socialism.

She is also interested in spreading classical music beyond social and socio-economic barriers. So Emma Wernig together with the “Sunrise Quartet” worked with the Street Symphony Initiative in order to bring classical music closer to underprivileged groups in Los Angeles.

www.emmawernig.com