Jesse MacDonald at age 26, has won the MASO Concerto Competition, in both Junior and Senior Divisions and the Umpqua Young Artist Competition, resulting in solo guest performances with the Great Falls, Glacier, Bozeman, and Umpqua Chamber Symphonies. He has also been a finalist or winner of the Musicfest Northwest Competition, Minnesota Symphonia Competition, Couer d’Alene Concerto Competition, and the MTNA Regional Competition. He was also the lead fiddle player for the Broken String Band, a contra dance and swing band based out of Bozeman, MT, for 10 years. Active in the chamber music scene, Jesse has performed with the Luminaria String Quartet, based in NYC, and was previously the second violinist of the Emma String Quartet and the Tempest String Quartet, both based out of Boston, which has performed in NEC’s Jordan Hall, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and throughout the New England area. Jesse received his Bachelors degree at the New England Conservatory of Music, studying with Masuko Ushioda and Joanna Kurkowicz, and was awarded the Rachmael Weinstock Scholarship for Violin and Hugo Kortschak Award for Chamber Music while graduating with a Masters degree studying with Mark Steinberg at the Manhattan School of Music.