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Esther Viola

Esther Viola uses oboe, flute, pifano, voice and Brazilian percussion to express, explore and experiment.

About Me

As a teenager, oboist Esther Viola (Boston, 1976) toured Europe and South America with youth orchestras, playing in Vienna, Budapest, Chile and Brazil. After receiving her Bachelor of Music with Distinction from the Eastman School of Music (Rochester, New York) in 1998, studying with Richard Kilmer, she went to Holland to study with Ernest Rombout at the Utrecht Conservatory. She received a Fulbright Full Grant in support of her studies there. As a student she joined the street-performance group Ricciotti Ensemble and toured with the Dutch Student Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra. In 2003 she graduated cum laude with a Master of Music focused on contemporary solo and chamber music repertoire and performance.

In the Netherlands Esther specialized in playing newly composed music, working closely with composers and commissioning works from them. As a member of Duo Hibiki (with pianist Reiko Tanaka) she participated for several years in the Suite Music Week (De Suite Muziekweek) in Amsterdam. There she was directed and coached by Adelheid Roosen and Ernst Reijseger, among others, to create theatrical cross-discipline presentations of new music. She played as a guest with the modern music focused Kaida Trio, and freelanced with orchestras such as Holland Symfonia and Musica Ducis. In 2009-2009 she performed as a member of the group Brokken Fabriek (brokkenfabriek) in a monthly improvisation series headed by guitarist Corrie van Binsbergen.

In 2008 Esther lived in Brazil and studied various traditional and popular Brazilian music forms at the Escola Portátil (Portable School) and with Itiberê Zwarg at the Pro Arte Music School, both in Rio de Janeiro. In January 2009 she received the Scholarship for Women Improvisers in order to participate in the Winter Intensive at the School for Improvisational Music in Brooklyn, NY.

Currently relocated in Boston, MA, Esther is performing with local creative music, free jazz/improv and experimental musicians, as well as joining in choro jams with members of the group Choro Democratico. For the 2009-2010 season, she received support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Cambridge Arts Council as a co-producer of the monthly Vortex series for new and improvised music in Cambridge, MA. She has also performed at the OpenSound series in Somerville and with the Chagall Performance Art Collaborative. In 2012 Esther is launching the Junk Kitchen, a mobile monthly concert series based out of the Outpost 186, in Cambridge, MA. Along with co-producer drummer Ben Dicke, the mission is to present diverse music styles to new audiences; and to make experimental and improvisational music consumable.