Welcome Emma and Emily!

The Newport String Project is delighted to announce the appointment of Emma Powell (violin) and Emily Edelstein (viola) to the project’s ensemble-in-residence, the Newport String Quartet.

Emma Powell - Violinist

Originally from Ann Arbor MI, violinist Emma Powell is an active performer and educator currently based in the New England area. She is a passionate collaborator with a desire to promote diversity in the arts through equal access to education, and performing works of living composers from a wide variety of musical backgrounds and cultures.

A dedicated chamber musician, Emma has been a core member of several ensembles including KINETIC, an artist-led collaborative ensemble of young professional string players in Houston, TX. During her undergraduate studies, she was a founding member and president of Opus (formerly Opus 21), the first student-run chamber music collective on campus dedicated to bringing an eclectic repertory of both traditional and contemporary works to the Princeton community and beyond. As a soloist, Emma has performed with several orchestras including the Michigan Pops Orchestra, the Princeton University Orchestra, and the Birmingham-Bloomfield Symphony. Her summer festival appearances include the Tanglewood Music Center, Spoleto Festival USA, and Roundtop Festival Institute.

In 2019, she completed her MM degree at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where she studied with Paul Kantor. While there, she received the Michael P Hammond Preparatory Program Brown Fellowship, through which she coached ensembles in the chamber music prep program. Previously, she graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University where she received her BA in music theory/musicology with a certificate in violin performance, under the instruction of Sunghae Anna Lim. Upon completing her degree, she was awarded the Isidore and Helen Sacks Memorial Prize for extraordinary achievement in the arts, granted each year to the student of greatest promise in the performance of classical music.

Emma is currently a member of the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra, and this will be her first year with the Newport String Project. 

Emily Edelstein, Violist

Emily Edelstein is a violist originally from Lexington, Massachusetts.  She holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Oberlin Conservatory where she studied with Kirsten Docter and Michael Strauss. Since graduating, Emily has focused her musical life around performing and sharing the magic of chamber music with audiences and students. She has spent the last two years as a performing artist for Lincoln Center Stage, where she presented a diverse array of concerts in a piano quintet aboard Holland America Line cruises. Emily is the founding violist and vocalist for Quartet Davis, an ensemble dedicated to playing innovative original works for string quartet, with a focus on improvisation across multiple genres. The quartet has collaborated with artists such as Billy Childs and Fabian Almazan, and has played in art museums, bars, barns, and concert halls across the country. 

Emily has coached chamber music as a guest practitioner and as part of Quartet Davis at a number of chamber music programs, including Chamber Music Connection Columbus, Artaria School of Chamber Music in St. Paul, and Kings Academy in Amman, Jordan. In addition to teaching private viola students, she helped design and co-teach a community music program in Lorain, OH that teaches musical and collaborative skills to students aged 5-13 through the medium of Javanese gamelan. Emily has been a string quartet fellow at Madeline Island Chamber Music and Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, as well as a student at the PROJECT Trio Collaborative Composition workshop, and the SilkRoad Global Musician Workshop where she performed with members of the Silk Road Ensemble. Emily is thrilled to be joining Newport String Project as Resident Violist, and to have the opportunity to share her love of music with the Newport community. When not performing or teaching, Emily is passionate about baking bread, finding new hiking trails, and watching dog videos.