Known for his dazzling technique and sweeping sound, Elliott Davis is a violinist who specializes in Romantic, Modernist and Jazz music. He holds a B.Mus in Violin Performance and a B.A. in Honors History from McGill University in Montreal, QC. He currently lives in Upper Manhattan.
Growing up in Connecticut, he studied violin with Annie Trepanier and appeared as a concerto soloist with the Nutmeg and West Hartford Symphony Orchestras. In the summer of 2019, he toured Europe as a member of the National Youth Orchestra (NYO-USA). He was also a fellow at Colorado College Summer Music in 2022. His most prominent teachers have included Axel Strauss, Erika Raum, Kerson Leong, André Roy, Dorian Bandy, and Catherine Cosbey.
He has served as concertmaster of the McGill Symphony Orchestra and was a finalist in the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 McGill Concerto Competitions. Upon graduation, he was awarded the prestigious Tali Salinger Gold Medal in music performance. In Canada, he continues to perform on occasion as an extra musician with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal.
As a musician-historian, Elliott is interested in how the same pieces of music have been conceptualized and interpreted across different moments in time. For him this often involves incorporating the intellectual and social contexts of classic works into concert programming and the creative process, without losing sight of what these works might mean to 21st-century audiences. He is also a proficient jazz violinist. In recent years he has arranged and performed recordings by Charlie Parker and Art Tatum for various ensembles, in the interest of revitalizing “classic” music with a broader purview. He is also available for contracted studio work, piano accompaniment, arranging, transcribing, and has several years of teaching experience.
A considerable portion of his time is spent reading musicological and historical literature. In his free time he enjoys visiting state parks and historical sites around Connecticut and New York. He also loves classic video games of all kinds, from Pong to Civilization V. His favorite film directors are Jaques Tati, Ingmar Bergman, and Peter Weir. His favorite painter is Caspar David Friedrich.
Elliott plays on a beautiful 2017 instrument with an open, warm tone made by Denis Cormier of Montreal, QC.