Clara lyon, violin

Co-Artistic Director
clara@decodamusic.org

Violinist Clara Lyon is an accomplished performer who brings a voracious appetite and unique spirit to a diverse array of music and multimedia. Ms. Lyon delights in curating performances that nurture the conversation between music of the traditional string canon, and commissions from vibrant new composers.

A prize-winner of the International Irving M. Klein Competition and the Schadt International Violin Competition, Ms. Lyon has been featured in performances at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and venues across the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and France. She is also a laureate of the National Foundation for the Arts Awards for young musicians, and has performed as a soloist with orchestras across the northeast. From 2012-2014 she was a member of Ensemble ACJW, a prestigious fellowship for young professional musicians jointly administered by Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School, the Weill Music Institute, and the New York City Department of Education. Clara has also performed with the New York-based Argento Ensemble, Metropolis Ensemble, Exponential Ensemble, Novus, Decoda, and the Momenta Quartet, and collaborated with such artists as Soovin Kim, Phil Setzer, Lucy Shelton, and Colin Carr. She has been invited to perform chamber music at the Festival de la Musique de Chambre à Giverny (FR), The Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau (FR), where her performance garnered the festival’s chamber music prize.

As a member of the Spektral Quartet, Ms. Lyon is in residence at the University of Chicago, where she coaches chamber music and teaches privately. She has taught at the Kinhaven Music Festival, has been a guest instructor at Ithaca College and the National Conservatory of Mexico, and an adjunct faculty member at the Pennsylvania State University. She is a Co-Director of Kneisel Hall-Blue Hill, Together in Music, an immersive outreach program facilitated by the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival.

Ms. Lyon holds degrees from SUNY Stony Brook (D.M.A. 2014, M.M. 2009), where she received a Staller Fellowship, and the Juilliard School (B.M. 2008). Major teachers include Soovin Kim, Laurie Smukler, Phil Setzer, Glenn Dicterow, and Yumi Ninomiya Scott, and she has coached chamber music with members of the Emerson, Juilliard, and Guarneri String Quartets. Ms.Lyon has recorded with Spektral Quartet for the Sono Luminus, Nimbus Records, and Parlour Tapes labels.