Renée Hemsing

VIOLA

Renée Hemsing is a multi-instrumentalist and educator whose particular interests in early music and chamber music have led her to perform in diverse capacities across the U.S. and abroad. As a member of the Ajax Quartet, she held a residency at the University of Colorado where she also earned her doctorate. Advised by the Takacs Quartet, the Ajax were Coltman Chamber Music Competition prize winners, finalists at the Chesapeake Chamber Music Competition, and enjoyed a residency at the Aspen Music Festival & School while concertizing across the US and Europe.

Renée’s recent performances include a tour of the UK with Consone Quartet performing ‘The Bridges of Königsberg,’ a newly commissioned sextet by Gavin Bryars broadcast by the BBC and slated for commercial recording, available fall 2025. Locally, Renée has appeared with Teatro Nuovo, Seraphic Fire, Bach Charlotte, Connecticut Early Music Festival, Arcadia Players, Rhode Island Philharmonic in addition to the Handel + Haydn Society. As part of Crescendo Productions’ historically-informed series, Renée has played in cultural sites across New England, including an online video release of Bach’s Ciaccona on viola.

Originally from Los Alamos, New Mexico, Renée received unconventional early tutelage from her violinist grandmother, an Oberlin graduate who swapped beginner violin books for string quartet scores and insisted Renée learn all the parts. As a result, Renée has played cello and viola alongside her primary studies on violin since childhood and passionately teaches all string instruments as Co-Chair of New England Conservatory Prep’s Early Music Department and in the Arlington Public Schools. She and her husband, cellist Guy Fishman, currently reside in Somerville, MA.