DMA, Violin Performance, University of South Carolina

M.M., Violin Performance, Juilliard School

B.M., Violin Performance, Juilliard School

MUS 170/270/370/470: Violin

MUS 145/245/345/445: String Chamber Ensemble

MUS 246/346: Upper String Techniques

Violinist Isabel Ong is an avid chamber musician with a passion for contemporary music, in addition to serving as a member of the New Juilliard Ensemble led by Joel Sachs at the Juilliard School, she has performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, National Sawdust, and MOMA and most recently, was invited to perform in the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra in Switzerland.  

An advocate for using the power of music to serve a greater humanitarian purpose, Isabel has organized and perform concerts with ASAP (Advocates for Southeast Asians and the Persecuted) honoring their non-profit service of spreading higher education and implementing healthier and cleaner living conditions for the people of Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. Whenever she is able to, Isabel travels to Taiwan to collaborate with the Adventist Women’s Ministry and other missionaries to promote the arts. During the 2017-2018 season, Isabel was an inaugural member of the Spark Collective, an ensemble designed to perform new works by current compositional students at the University of South Carolina, and curate and perform interactive concerts for the community. Additionally, Isabel strongly believes in supporting the artists of today’s world. In November of 2020, she co-founded a multidisciplinary art collective, called The Present Kairos, that specializes in collaborating, writing and performing music with diverse ensembles. Isabel is also a co-founder of the Buffalo-based contemporary string quartet, fra/ctured, in which they often perform programs that bridge traditional repertoire with the music of today.

An equally dedicated teacher, Isabel is currently teaching at SUNY Fredonia, Buffalo String Works, and spends her summers on faculty at Point CounterPoint in Vermont. She holds degrees  in violin performance from Juilliard (BM, MM) and the University of South Carolina (DMA). Her teachers include Joseph Lin, Laurie Smukler, and Ari Streisfeld. In her free time, Isabel can be found poring over a good book.