Rosemary Nelis has performed as chamber musician and soloist across the United States and Europe, sharing her ebullient, imaginative playing in work that spans the great standard repertoire, historical performance, and extensive collaboration with living composers. She is known for her arresting expressivity and warmth, for the richness and depth of her sound, and for the seriousness of her vision as an artist, colleague, and teacher.
Ms. Nelis plays on a 1991 viola made by the Brooklyn-based maker Samuel Zygmuntowicz. Ms. Nelis is herself a native of Brooklyn, and her early instrumental studies were at the Special Music School as a student of Viktor Basis. She enjoyed formative new music concerts with Face the Music, a NYC-based contemporary music ensemble, with whom she performed quartets at Le Poisson Rouge, Roulette, BAMcafé, Merkin Hall, El Museo del Barrio, the Queens Museum, the Cornelia Street Café, and the Ecstatic Music Festival.
