Emma Wernig, viola (Los Angeles, CA), a German-Austrian first generation American, has studied with Helen Callus and will continue with Paul Coletti at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in the fall. Emma is the 2016 Leiber&Stoller Scholarship recipient, awarded through the Young Musicians Foundation, Los Angeles, a first place winner at the 2016 American Protégé Concerto Competition and a winner of the Rising Stars Grand Prix 2016 International Music Competition Berlin. An alumna of the Heifetz International Music Institute, she has performed with their renowned Heifetz-On-Tour-Program in Washington, DC and across Virginia. As violist of the “Chimera Quartet” Emma won the Gold Medal and “Best Haydn Performance” at the 2016 Saint Paul String Quartet Competition, first place at the WDAV’s Young Chamber Musicians Competition in Davidson, North Carolina, and winner of the inaugural 2016 M-Prize Chamber Music Competition at the University of Michigan in the Junior Strings Category. She was also a member of the “Incendium Quartet”, winning the Gold Medal in the Junior Category at the 2015 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and featured on NPR’s From the Top. Emma was the principal violist of the Colburn Music Academy’s “Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra” and has played with the “Young Artists Symphony Orchestra” and “Debut Orchestra” in Los Angeles.