Carmen Granger, Violin & Viola
Carmen Granger is an orchestral musician and educator throughout the midwest and has been seen performing with many symphonies and opera companies in Ohio, Kentucky, Arkansas, Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina. She is currently Principal Violist of the Lima Symphony Orchestra, and has sat as principal viola of Western Piedmont Symphony, Carolina Philharmonic, Fayetteville Symphony, and assistant principal of Greensboro Symphony and Durham Symphony.
Carmen graduated in 2017 with her Bachelor’s in Music Performance from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). During her time at UNCG, she was the principal viola of the Symphony Orchestra for two years and performed with different smaller ensembles within the school, including being the resident violinist/violist of the school’s contemporary music ensemble, Present~Continuous, the Gate City Camerata, Casella Sinfonietta and the UNCG Opera Orchestra. She has also had the pleasure of working with Lynn Harrell, Philip Glass, Molly Ringwald, and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. She has performed in masterclasses for Michael Strauss, Pamela Ryan, and Elias Goldstein as well as the Friction Quartet, Daedalus Quartet, and Decoda Quartet.
In 2020, Carmen graduated from The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory (CCM) of Music with her Master’s degree in Viola Performance. While she was at CCM, she was principal for the Philharmonia Orchestra, Concert Orchestra, and Chamber Orchestra and has performed in masterclasses for Rictor Noren, Amadi Azikiwe, Scott Lee, and Wendy Richman.
In recent years, Carmen has played at the Durham Center for Performing Arts as a guest with the MGP Live tour of The Legend of Zelda Symphony of the Goddesses (2017) as well as Distant Worlds: The Music from Final Fantasy (2018). She has also been an orchestral fellow at National Music Festival (2019) and Sewanee Summer Music Festival (2018). She is currently studying to complete her D.M.A. in Viola from CCM. In her free time, Carmen enjoys playing disc golf, video games, baking, and entertaining her two cats, Yuffie and Clementine.