Alice Ford, 20, is a violist entering her third year at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where she studies with Atar Arad. A native of Bloomington, Indiana, she began her musical studies on violin at the age of 5 in the IU String Academy, before switching to viola at 14. Since then, she has gone on to win the Bloomington Symphony and Indianapolis Youth Symphony young artist competitions, in addition to the viola position of the 2018 Rubens Consort Chamber Music Lab, where she performed Mendelssohn’s A major viola quintet with Sarah Kapustin and Roeland Jagers. While a student at the String Academy, Alice performed with the IU Jacobs Virtuosi and studied with renowned pedagogues Dr. Brenda Brenner and Mimi Zweig. As a member of the Virtuosi, she traveled to New Mexico to perform at the 2019 American String Teachers’ Association National Conference, and on a tour throughout Argentina and Chile, where the group presented concerts in venues ranging from major concert halls to local schools. Additional performance highlights include concerto performances with Peter Stumpf and Atar Arad, and an Indianapolis Violin Competition Laureate Series concert as principal viola in a complete performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with Luke Hsu. Since beginning her university studies, Alice has served as principal violist of Jacobs’ top collegiate orchestra and studied chamber music with the school’s quartet in residence, Pacifica Quartet. She has attended the Domaine Forget Music Academy in Charlevoix, Québec, and the Heifetz International Music Institute in Staunton, Virginia. In addition to her viola studies, Alice is a violin teacher at the Fairview Violin Project, an IU program that aims to provide high quality musical instruction for underserved students at Fairview Elementary, a Title I school. She has also taken up Irish fiddle, beginning lessons in early 2022 with transatlantic fiddler Joanna Hyde. Aside from classical performance, her playing has been featured on Lizzy Hilliard’s folk album “growth vol. 2” and an upcoming jazz album from saxophonist and clarinetist Ana Nelson.