Maureen Murchie
Principal Viola
Maureen Murchie is an active performer on violin and viola and in demand as a soloist, leader, chamber musician, and teacher. In addition to her work as concertmaster of the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, recent performing engagements include the baroque and contemporary orchestras of Trinity Wall Street, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Apollo’s Fire, Mark Morris Dance Company, Harry Connick Jr., El Mundo (Carnegie Hall Feb 2023), and the Broadway pits of Tootsie, Parade, and Farinelli and the King. In December 2021 she was a featured soloist in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with the American Classical Orchestra at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.
Maureen grew up in Sendai, Japan and in 1995 won first prize at the Bach Hall Classical Music Competition in Nakaniida, Japan. Having attended Japanese schools through high school, Maureen speaks, reads, and writes Japanese at a native level and has worked as a Japanese translator, interpreter, and editor. She holds degrees from Baylor University (magna cum laude) and a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she wrote a dissertation on the history of the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra. Her album Gospel Hymns for Violin & Piano with jazz pianist Paul Johnston was released in February 2024.
Dr. Murchie has held teaching positions at Eastern Illinois University, McLennan Community College, University of Illinois, Neuqua Valley High School, and InterSchool Orchestras of New York. Currently she is Director of Orchestras at Bismarck High School, Assistant Conductor of the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Youth Orchestra, and adjunct faculty at University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota.