Melissa White

BIO

American violinist Melissa White has enchanted audiences and critics around the world for her “warmly expressive and lyrical…glittering” playing (Chicago Classical Review) and for “making her violin sing elegantly” (Aspen Times). Ms. White’s rapid rise as a soloist has captured the attention of orchestras and audiences worldwide, many of whom already know her for her successes as a founding member of the Grammy-winning Harlem Quartet. 

Highlights of the 2025–26 season include Ms. White’s debut with the Seattle Symphony; the world premiere of Sophia Jani’s Violin Concerto with the Dallas Symphony, where Jani is composer-in-residence; and debut performances with the Mobile and Columbus Symphony Orchestras. She also returns for performances with the Johnson City Symphony and Northwest Sinfonietta, and will record a new concerto by Jonathan Bailey Holland with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra.

Recent and upcoming solo recital debuts for Ms. White include Boston Conservatory, the Spire Center in Plymouth, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Detroit, Davidson College, and The Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts in Kingston, Ontario. Since 2023, she has also appeared in recital at Carnegie Hall, Corpus Christi Chamber Music Society, the Phillips Collection, and Purdue Convocations, among others. 

Beyond orchestra and recital appearances, Ms. White relishes the opportunity to perform in chamber music settings alongside close friends and colleagues. In June 2023, she joined the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective at London’s Wigmore Hall together with Hilary Hahn, and she reunited with the ensemble for performances in the 2023–24 season from Germany to major series along the East Coast, returning again to Wigmore Hall in July 2025. Other recent chamber music engagements, beyond the Harlem Quartet, include appearances at the Spoleto Chamber Music Festival, Tippet Rise, Festival Napa Valley, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the Sarasota Music Festival.

A first-prize laureate in the Sphinx Competition, she has performed with such leading U.S. ensembles as the Cleveland Orchestra, the Boston Pops, the Louisville Orchestra, and the Atlanta, Baltimore, Colorado, Detroit, and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras. Internationally, she has appeared as soloist with Poland’s Filharmonia Dolnoslaska; with the Colombian Youth Orchestra in a tour of that country; with the Czech National Philharmonic; and as a recitalist in Baku, Azerbaijian, and Jelenia Gora, Poland. Her film credits include a violin solo in the soundtrack to Jordan Peele’s 2019 psychological thriller Us; and in addition to her numerous classical performances she has also performed alongside several pop artists including Pharrell, Bruno Mars, Alicia Keys, and Lauryn Hill. 

Ms. White is a founding member of New York-based Harlem Quartet, where since 2006 her passion and artistry have contributed to performances hailed for “bringing a new attitude to classical music, one that is fresh, bracing and intelligent” (Cincinnati Enquirer). Together with Harlem Quartet, she has appeared in many of the country’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall, the White House, and the Kennedy Center; and toured throughout the U.S., as well as in Europe, Africa, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Harlem Quartet has collaborated closely with leading jazz musicians including Chick Corea and Gary Burton with whom their recording , “Mozart Goes Dancing” won three Grammy Awards, including the Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition in 2013. Harlem Quartet was named quartet-in-residence at Montclair State University in the fall of 2021, and has served as the visiting quartet-in-residence at the Royal College of Music in London since 2016. In 2024, Harlem Quartet took home a Grammy for Best Classical Compendium for their work on “Passion for Bach and Coltrane,” with Imani Winds, A.B. Spellman, and jazz trio Alex Brown, Edward Perez, and Neal Smith. In 2025, Harlem Quartet earned its first Latin Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Album with “Havana meets Harlem”, their collaboration with Cuban pianist-composer Aldo López Gavilán.

A passionate educator, Ms. White currently serves as Music Artist Faculty at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. In the fall of 2022, she also joined the Music Faculty at the University of Buffalo as Professor of Music.

Born and raised in Lansing, Michigan, she received her BMus from The Curtis Institute of Music and MMus from New England Conservatory, where her teachers included Jaime Laredo, Ida Kavafian, Donald Weilerstein, and Miriam Fried.

In addition to her musical career, Ms. White has enjoyed practicing various styles of yoga for more than a decade, and completed training in both Vinyasa and Ashtanga at Sampoorna Yoga School in Goa, India. She is the co-founder of Intermission, a groundbreaking program that unites body, mind, breath, and music-making through yoga and meditation; the program comprises sessions for students and retreats for professionals.

Melissa is represented worldwide by Epstein Fox Performances in partnership with Dinin Arts Management & Consulting. She is incredibly grateful to be playing a c1780 Ferdinando Gagliano violin, currently on loan from Strumenti.