Violist Isabella Bignasca, from Sydney, Australia, is an expressive young performer with a passion for chamber music and community engagement. She is currently a 2023-25 fellow at Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, and as part of the fellowship, is a resident teaching artist at City College Academy of the Arts in New York. Isabella completed a master’s degree under the tutelage of Paul Neubauer and Heidi Castleman at The Juilliard School, where she also completed her undergraduate studies.
She has performed alongside renowned musicians such as Itzhak Perlman, the Borromeo Quartet, and members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. World-famous performance venues Isabella has played in include Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the Sydney Opera House, as well as other notable spaces like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum.
Particularly dedicated to chamber music, Isabella has performed for the Symphony in C Virtuosi Series, Shelter Island Friends of Music, Parlance Chamber Concerts, Sonora Collective, Heifetz on Tour, and joined New York Classical Players on their 2023 Pacific Northwest Tour. As someone also passionate about working with and playing works by living composers, Isabella premiered composer inti figgis-vizueta’s piece, seven sisters paint the earth, at Carnegie Hall, and Smoke Rising, a duo piece dedicated to her by composer Liam Cummins. Isabella’s international festival appearances include the Verbier Festival, Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Music Academy of the West and the Heifetz International Music Institute.
Community service and sharing music with a wide variety of audiences is an important part of Isabella’s career. She has presented interactive performances for schools around the United States and has played in many hospitals, assisted living facilities, rehabilitation centers and nursing homes. She has been an artist for If Music Be The Food, and Music for Food, two benefit concert organizations that raise support for people struggling with homelessness and food insecurity. Since 2022 and with a small group of colleagues, Isabella has partnered annually with New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to present a multimedia Earth Day concert in the organization’s premier green space, the David Rubenstein Atrium. Isabella hopes to continue her endeavors to make classical music heard in ways that are innovative, and to share music with others for the betterment of the world.
