Photo by Natalie Gaynor
Recognized by the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM) for possessing “unusual creativity and expression,” Darius Milhaud Foundation Award recipient Molly Wise is a violist who uses performance to inspire and educate audiences. She performs extensively throughout Houston, Texas with classical and contemporary organizations including Musiqa Houston, Kinetic Ensemble, as the violist of Duo Impetuoso with pianist James Palmer, and more, in art museums, concert halls, classrooms, and beyond. Additionally, she has performed around the United States and Canada as a chamber and solo artist, sharing the Kennedy Center stage in Washington, D.C. with the Apollo Chamber Players and Emmy Award-winning Vietnamese instrumentalist Võ Vân Ánh, presenting her original transcriptions of Florence Price and Amy Beach as a lecture-recitalist at the 2024 American Viola Society Festival in Los Angeles, and performing alongside violinists Kelly Tompkins-Hall and Margaret Batjer, violist Milena Pajaro-van der Stadt, cellists Brinton Smith and Matthew Zalkind, pianist John Novacek, and artists from the Miró, New Orford, and Borromeo Quartets at various chamber music festivals. In her own programming and research, Molly highlights works composed by historical and living women, most recently in Duo Impetuoso’s debut recital, Impetuoso, at the Steinway Selection Center in downtown Houston. She has taken part in countless world premieres, including works by Rice University composition professors, up-and-coming Houston-based peers, and internationally recognized artists.
Molly attends the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University as a Doctor of Musical Arts student and one of five recipients of the Lodieska Stockbridge Vaughn Fellowship across the university, demonstrating “outstanding achievement and promise.” Her doctoral recitals have highlighted lesser-known solo viola and chamber music by female composers including Gabriela Lena Frank, Joan Tower, Chen Yi, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Tian Qin, Nicky Sohn, and original transcriptions of works by Nadia Boulanger and Florence Price. She has served as James Dunham’s teaching assistant for the past five years, as a master’s and doctoral student, and is passionate about enhancing the educational experience of the undergraduate violists in her studio. A recipient of the Benjamin Armistead Shepherd Teaching Fellowship and the Winifred and Maurice Hirsch Scholarship, she has taught music theory for non-majors and aural skills for undergraduate music majors at Rice. In addition to viola performance, she holds a bachelor’s degree in music theory, a minor in Dalcroze Eurhythmics, and was a recipient of the Isada-Stillman-Varma Award for excellence in music theory, given by Dr. Richard Nelson, professor emeritus of music theory at CIM.
Photo by Natalie Gaynor
From “New Dimensions in Sight and Sound,” presented by Musiqa Houston at the MATCH, Houston on April 29, 2023.
Photo by Lynn Lane
A passionate leader, Molly is currently a Graduate Ambassador for the Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice, working to further the leadership skills of music students and representing the Shepherd School of Music to the university. Previously, during her time as a Young Artist of Da Camera of Houston, she designed and led “Project Reconnect: Social and Musical Collaborations for Post-Pandemic Reconnection” in collaboration with Girls, Inc. of Greater Houston. She served girls ages 11-14 in Northeast Houston through creating socially collaborative musical activities, providing a space to process the isolation, loss, and loneliness of the Covid-19 pandemic, and reconnect with one another after over a year of school on Zoom. Besides Project Reconnect, she has worked in Houston public and private schools with students from pre-kindergarten through high school as a teaching artist and mentor.
Da Camera storytelling lesson for first-graders
Thank-you note from a Houston Independent School District kindergarten student
Da Camera Young Artists Kelsey Sham and Molly after one of many duo performances
As winner of the CIM Concerto Competition, Molly made her solo debut performing Penderecki’s Viola Concerto with the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra. Since then, she has won second prize in the Ruth Burr Competition of the Houston Tuesday Musical Club, was a finalist in the American Viola Society Solo Competition, and has enjoyed orchestral leadership in the Shepherd School, Sarasota Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, and CIM Orchestras, including in the Cleveland Orchestra’s Severance Hall. She was awarded the Cleveland Music and Drama Club scholarship for demonstrating outstanding musicianship, and she was also a prizewinner in the Ohio Viola Society competition.
Molly and conductor Bill Eddins after performing the Penderecki Viola Concerto in Kulas Hall, Cleveland OH. Photo by Quinn Price.
Photo by Caroline Barbier de Reulle
Molly is a dedicated educator. She currently coaches chamber music downtown at the Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts as an AFA Texas teaching artist. She also frequently leads viola sectionals at high schools in the Greater Houston area, and maintains a private viola/violin studio. Her high school students have won positions in Texas regional orchestras and honors scores in solo and ensemble competitions. Previously, Molly led chamber music summer programs for teenage musicians at Potomac Music, LLC in Lorton, Virginia, coaching string students in repertoire ranging from classical, to bossa nova, to video game music. She enjoys developing her pedagogical skills and strongly feels that her commitment to students is just as vital to her musicianship as her viola playing.
Last day of Molly’s teen ensemble camp at Potomac Music
Photo by Chris Greenwood