Canadian-German violinist Emma Meinrenken is an artist praised for her effortless technique and virtuosity, as well as her skill in interpreting contemporary music. She is the newly-appointed Associate 1st Violin of the New York City Ballet, and is a recipient of the 2023 Sylva Gelber Music Foundation Award, the 2023 Yale Presser Foundation Music Award, and a 2024 Yale Alumni Association Award. She received 1st place at the Stradivarius International Violin Competition, the Prix Ravel at the Ecole d'Art Américaines de Fontainebleau, and has participated in festivals such as the NUME Festival in Italy, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, the Verbier Festival Academy, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and the Four Seasons Winter Workshop. She is a co-founder of Music Around the Corner, a chamber music series based in Toronto.

Meinrenken debuted with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2011, and has since performed with orchestras across North America and Europe, most recently with the Richmond Symphony. She often collaborates with composers, and has been the dedicatee of many new compositions for solo violin. She made her Carnegie Hall debut giving the New York premiere of a piece for violin and guitar by Fred Lerdahl, and most recently premiered a violin concerto by Maya Miro Johnson with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra. She will be a featured artist at Bang on a Can’s 2026 ‘Long Play’ festival.

Upon graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with renowned pedagogue Ida Kavafian, Meinrenken received the Milka Violin Artist Prize. Originally from Toronto, Canada, she spent her formative years in the studio of Atis Bankas as a student in the Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists. She has a Master of Musical Arts from Yale, where she was under the tutelage of the violin luminary Augustin Hadelich, and is currently pursuing her doctorate degree at the CUNY with Mark Steinberg. She currently plays on a 2013 Mario Miralles violin, and a ca.1870 Nicolas Maline bow.