French-Lebanese-American violist Noémie Chemali enjoys a diverse career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, and writer. Praised for her “formidable technique” (The Flip Side) and her “technical and interpretive skills” (New Music Buff), Ms. Chemali has received grants and awards from Chamber Music America, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Juilliard School, and the Barenboim-Said Foundation. Her performances have taken her across the United States, Canada, and Europe, performing in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Auditorium Conciliazione, Salle Bourgie, la Maison Symphonique de Montréal, the United Nations Headquarters, and many others. Noémie is the violist and co-founder of Ensemble Phoenicia, a New York-based contemporary music ensemble that celebrates the rich heritage and artistic innovation of contemporary Middle Eastern classical music. She recently released her debut album of music by Lebanese composers, Opus 961 under the label Dreyer-Gaido, which has been critically acclaimed and featured by publications such as La Scena Musicale, Strings Magazine, The Violin Channel, L’agenda Culturel, L’Orient le Jour, Oberon’s Grove, and Chelsea Pianista, amongst others. 

Passionate about community engagement, she co-founded the Hildegard Project, which aims to bring music written by women composers to women’s shelters in the greater Montreal area and was invited to speak about her work at the Classical Evolution/Revolution Conference in Santa Barbara, CA. In 2020, she founded Music@Daybreak, an interdisciplinary performance and research project which features performances at homeless shelters in collaboration with the Sociology department at Mercer University. She was a 2021 Gluck Community Engagement Fellowship Recipient at the Juilliard School, where she served as the group leader of the UnMute Piano Quintet, which played outreach concerts throughout New York City. Most recently, she performed a sold-out Opus 961 album launch concert at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York in support of MSF (Doctors Without Borders). 

Noemie has spent her summers at music festivals such as The Music Academy of the West, Sarasota Music Festival,  Orford Musique, The Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance (LAMP), Scotia Festival of Music, Manhattan in the Mountains, and Green Mountain music festivals,  and the Musical Chairs Chamber Music Festival. While Ms. Chemali was a fellow at the Music Academy of the West, she played under the baton of esteemed conductors Larry Rachleff, Stéphane Denève, Gustavo Dudamel, and James Conlon. While at Sarasota Music Festival, she served as principal violist of the festival orchestra under the baton of Jeffrey Kahane. She has, throughout the years, participated in various masterclasses with artists such as Joseph Silverstein, Ida Kavafian, Cynthia Phelps, Karen Dreyfus, Richard O’Neill, James Dunham, Jutta Puchhammer and the Pacifica String Quartet. She has collaborated with members of the Cavani and Ehnes String Quartets, violinist Robert McDuffie, clarinetist David Krakauer, bassoonist Frank Morelli, guitarist Mike Mills of the band R.E.M., and pianist Chuck Leavell of the Allman Brothers Band/Rolling Stones. 

Ms.Chemali received her Bachelor’s degree from McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, her Artist Diploma from the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University, and her Master’s Degree from The Juilliard School. Her principal teachers include Isabel Trautwein, Mari Sato, Pavel Ilyashov, Felicia Moye, André Roy, Becca Albers, Hsin-Yun Huang, and Carol Rodland. Noémie is on the faculty of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s education division (YOSL), where she teaches violin and viola and leads sectionals for the Youth Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Noémie serves as a program notes annotator at the Juilliard School and is a certified grant writer. In this capacity, she helps orchestras, festivals, chamber ensembles, and soloists reach their fundraising goals via her New York City-based consulting practice.