About the EOP Competition founder,
Emily Ondracek-Peterson:
Praised by The New York Times for her “elegant solowork,” and by Strad magazine for her “dazzling passagework,” Dr. Emily Ondracek-Peterson’s multifaceted pursuits embody the scope, versatility, and ability required for a successful music career in the twenty-first century.
Dr. Ondracek-Peterson is a native of Chicago and began playing the violin at the age of 4. At sixteen, she gave her solo debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and has since performed solo and chamber music performances at all of the major venues in New York City including Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, the Guggenheim, MoMA, {le} poisson rouge, and the Apollo Theatre. At Cleveland Orchestra’s Blossom Summer Music Festival, she was presented the Joseph Gingold Award for most outstanding instrumentalist. With her husband, Dr. Erik Christian Peterson, she is Co-Artistic Director of the Crested Butte Music Festival.
As first violinist of the acclaimed Voxare String Quartet, Dr. Ondracek has been awarded Chamber Music America’s ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming; recorded for Naxos, Albany, and Toccata labels; and performed throughout the US and Europe. She has also performed and recorded with the Talea Ensemble; the Wordless Orchestra with Johnny Greenwood (Radiohead); Axiom; Classical Jam; the Japanese band, Mono.
Currently Dr. Ondracek is the director of string studies and professor of violin at Metropolitan State University of Denver and is on faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is a two-time Morse Fellow and was a New York Philharmonic Teaching Artist. To help young artists realize their artistic and entrepreneurial goals, she co-founded with Eugenia Zukerman Noted Endeavors, an organization that publishes in association with Musical America excerpts of interviews with leading artists and arts entrepreneurs.
Dr. Ondracek received both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Masao Kawasaki under a Morse Scholarship. At Teachers College, Columbia University, Dr. Ondracek received her doctorate in Music and Music Education.
Learn more about EOP at: emilyop.com