rebecca benjamin

Rebecca Benjamin, a native of Warsaw IN, is an engaging and versatile musician who has made appearances across the United States and abroad. At home on both the violin and the viola, Rebecca is an active performer on both instruments. Ms. Benjamin recently participated in the 2022 Tokyo International Viola Competition as well as the 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition. She has attended the Prussia Cove Masterclasses in Cornwall, England and has concertized internationally in Canada and the Dominican Republic.

 

An avid chamber musician, Rebecca is a member of the Abeo Quartet, prizewinners of the 2022 Yellow Springs and Chesapeake Chamber Music Competitions. Finalists of the 2021 and 2022 Young Concert Artists auditions, they are currently the inaugural Graduate String Quartet Fellowship recipients at the University of Delaware School where they are studying under the guidance of the Calidore String Quartet.  A founding member of the Munin Piano Trio, she performed during the pandemic at the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance in Nova Scotia, Canada as part of their 2020 Beethoven Celebration as well as The Forum on St. Thomas, USVI. Rebecca has participated in the Music@Menlo Festival, MISQA, Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop, Aspen Music Festival, Aspen Wu Han/David Finkel Chamber Studio, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Mimir Chamber Music Festival, St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar, and Caroga Lake Music Festival. Rebecca has worked and collaborated with members of the Brentano, Cleveland, Emerson, Juilliard, Orion, and Pacifica String Quartets, among others. 

 

Also an experienced orchestral player, Ms. Benjamin is currently the associate principal violist of Symphony in C. She has performed in Carnegie Hall as concertmaster of the New York String Orchestra Seminar and has also been a member of the Hartford Symphony and Akron Symphony orchestras. She served as concertmaster for the Cleveland Institute of Music orchestra, the Symphony of the Lakes, the Music Institute of Chicago Academy Chamber Orchestra and the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Youth Symphony. Rebecca has soloed with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Cleveland Pops Orchestra, Cleveland Institute of Music orchestra, MasterWorks Festival orchestra, Fort Wayne Youth Symphony, Symphony of the Lakes, and the MIC Academy Chamber Orchestra. 

 

Recently appointed as violin faculty of the Kneisel Hall Maine Students Program, Ms. Benjamin began teaching there in the summer of 2022. Her love for teaching brought her to the faculty of the Fairfield/Trumball School of Music in Fairfield, CT, where she formerly taught a studio of young children and she has had Suzuki teacher training at the Sato Center for Suzuki Studies in Cleveland, OH.

 

Graduating summa cum laude with her bachelors degree in Violin Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music, Ms. Benjamin also holds a masters degree from CIM in addition to a Master of Musical Arts degree from the Yale School of Music where she was awarded the Broadus Erle Prize in Violin. Her principal teachers include Hyo Kang, Jaime Laredo, Jan Sloman, Joel Smirnoff, Almita and Roland Vamos, and Derek Reeves. She is currently pursuing a Masters in Viola Performance from the University of Delaware under the tutelage of Elias Goldstein with a special concentration in violin with Jeffrey Myers. Aside from her musical studies, Rebecca loves hiking, nature and photography.