Fellowship Program update: EmmaLee Holmes-Hicks

CMW warmly welcomes EmmaLee Holmes-Hicks, violin, to Providence as a new member of CMW's two-year Fellowship Program ('11-'13).

EmmaLee (known as Emmy) received her doctoral degree from SUNY Stony Brook, studying violin with Phil Setzer, Soovin Kim and Philippe Graffin. She completed her undergraduate work with honors at the Cleveland Institute of Music where she studied with Stephen Rose and Annie Fullard. As a chamber player, she has enjoyed the fine coaching of both the Emerson and Cavani String Quartets, and she has served as faculty at summer music festivals such as Birch Creek and the Allegheny Music Festival.

When not playing classical violin, Emmy is well-versed in old-time fiddle music. She has played lead fiddle with the Rusty Pickup String Band since she was ten years old, and she won the Illinois State Fair fiddle championship as a teenager.

What drew you to Community MusicWorks?

After spending many years in music school and focusing lots of energy on improving my own playing and my knowledge of music, I have been yearning for an outlet where I could use these skills to help a community and also to expand my horizons beyond the enclosed community of a music school. At times in my education, I felt a strong pull to leave the confines of the conservatory to put my knowledge to work in the broader world. But I always found ways of serving others within the academic world and so I stayed the course.

When I finished my doctorate, I finally had the time to devote to larger endeavors. I made some attempts to initiate my own mission of change. But I felt deficient in the skills or resources needed to make more than a tiny splash. When I found out about the Fellowship position at CMW, I was elated and I immediately applied. This seemed the perfect fit: a musical organization that worked to bring transformation and change to a community suffering from lack of opportunity.