Boston-based violist and Korean Adoptee, Lauren Nelson is a versatile chamber and orchestral musician who is equally at home on both modern and historically informed instruments. As a Waldorf student growing up in rural southern New Hampshire, she fostered a love for the arts from an early age. Inspired by the collaborative spirit of chamber music, she quickly recognized that her viola would be a lifelong companion.
She appears regularly with some of the nation’s leading period ensembles including Boston Baroque and Handel + Haydn Society and of course, the Apreggione Ensemble.
Dedicated to contemporary music, Lauren is the violist of the Semiosis Quartet, whose recent projects include a residency at Tanglewood and a program of works by female composers supported by the American Music Project. She also performs and records with Emmanuel Music, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Odyssey Opera, Cantata Singers, New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, and Monadnock Music.
Lauren holds degrees in music performance from New England Conservatory, the University of Kentucky School of Music, and the Eastman School of Music. Her teachers have included Roger Tapping, Deborah Lander and John Graham. On historical viola she has studied with Adam LaMotte, Patrick Jordan, Marc Destrubé, Robert Mealy, Elizabeth Blumenstock and Julia Wedman.
When she’s not practicing or performing you can find Lauren deep in the woods, foraging for mushrooms with her husband, composer Steven Snowden, or studying Korean and hanging out with her 10 month old daughter.
