Avery Morris, Violin

Avery Morris is a second year DMA student at Stony Brook University where she studies with Jennifer Frautschi, Arnaud Sussmann, Phil Setzer and Hagai Shaham, and is a member of the Emerson String Quartet Institute. She previously studied at University of Ottawa (M.Mus) with Yehonatan Berick, and at Bard Conservatory with Weigang Li. Avery has performed at Lincoln Center, the National Arts Centre, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Colburn School’s Zipper Hall and historic halls throughout Cuba, Colombia, Eastern Europe and Russia. She has soloed with The Orchestra Now, Palisades Symphony, Crossroads EMMI Orchestra, and her performances have been broadcasted on WQXR, KUSC and KCSN Radio. Avery has held orchestral positions in the Ottawa Symphony and in the National Arts Centre’s Institute for Orchestral Studies. She has worked with artists Christian Tetzlaff, Jonathan Crow, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Ani Kavafian and Laurie Smukler. She has attended the Heifetz Institute, Sarasota Music Festival, Banff Masterclass Program, Bowdoin Music Festival, Chautauqua Institution, Orford Musique and the Pablo Casals Festival.

An advocate for music as a powerful vehicle for social good, Avery co-founded “Sounds of Social Change,'' a project aimed at mentoring young musicians in Cali, Colombia. She and her colleagues received a 2015 Davis Projects for Peace Prize and a $10,000 grant to fund their summer residency.

In addition to her Violin studies, Avery completed a degree in Mathematics at Bard College as well as two research internships at MIT. Her senior thesis at Bard was entitled, “From Random to Organized: The Architecture of Neural Networks During Development.”