Emily Shehi

Emily Shehi, age fourteen, currently studies violin with Noah Geller and Tiberius Klausner. She has also studied privately with teachers and artists Alice Joy Lewis, Brian Lewis and Paul Kantor. Emily has recently made her Helzberg Hall debut performing Prokofiev Violin Concerto No.1 in D major at the finals for the Kansas City Symphony Young Artist Competition. Being named the First Prize winner, she will perform with the Kansas City Symphony under the baton of Maestro Michael Stern in May. Since receiving an invitation to perform as a guest soloist at the age of eight with the Liberty Symphony Orchestra, Emily has appeared with various other orchestras performing works by Barber, Beethoven, Dvořák, McLean, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Saint-Saëns and Tchaikovsky.

Her awards include Kearney Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Competition (2012), KMTA Mozart Concerto Competition (2012), Kansas City Youth Symphony Concerto Competition (2011) and ASTA National Solo State Competition (2008, 2010). Earlier this year, Emily was named a National Finalist for the 2013 MTNA Junior Performance Competition. She is currently the concertmaster of the Symphony Orchestra of Youth Symphony of Kansas City, and the violinist of “Trio Aër” coached by Dr. Scott McBride Smith. In February, Emily led a conductorless group, the Camerata Chamber Orchestra of Heartland Music Academy, for two concerts.

She has studied and collaborated with many world class faculty at the highly competitive Brian Lewis Young Artist Program (2008-2013) , Aspen Music Festival and School (2011), Kansas City String Quartet Program (2012) and Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival and Institute (2009, 2010, and 2013).  Emily was selected as a Student Artist to participate in masterclasses and perform a recital at the 2013 Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies at the Juilliard School. Emily is a freshman high school student in Olathe, Kansas, and loves reading and playing on the school tennis team.