Gabrielle Chou is a New York-based pianist and violinist seeking to defy genres and break barriers in music education and performance tradition. On both instruments she performs solo, chamber music, and in large ensembles; teaches, lectures, coaches, and gives masterclasses; improvises and collaborates with composers, dancers, and other artists; and is active in community engagement and advancing an equitable and accessible future for the arts. She studied at the Colburn Music Academy and received her B.M. and M.M. from The Juilliard School, as well as her D.M.A. from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, writing her dissertation on play and game elements in music. Her teachers include Jerome Lowenthal and Richard Goode on piano, Lewis Kaplan on violin, and Emanuel Ax, Timothy Eddy, Joseph Kalichstein, Matti Raekallio, and Sylvia Rosenberg for chamber music.
Gabrielle performs and teaches around the country and internationally, including appearances as both piano and violin soloist with orchestras in the US, Europe, and Asia. Recent highlights include music directing and performing in the 2025 YoungArts Miami gala, performing with ensemble PinkNoise at the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival, performing with trio Longleash at The Kennedy Center for the opening ceremony of Dvořák Dreams, an installation by Refik Anadol, and serving as artist faculty at Sarasota Music Festival, pianoSonoma, and Mostly Modern in Middelburg, the Netherlands. While Gabrielle plays the breadth of repertoire for either instrument, she is particularly passionate about chamber and contemporary music and enjoys all forms of collaboration with musicians of any genre and artists of any medium. She has premiered piano, violin, chamber, and orchestral works at Juilliard, the Yale School of Music, National Sawdust, the Avaloch Music Institute, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
Currently Gabrielle serves as an orchestra and chamber music coach at Riverdale Country School, chamber music coach at the New York Youth Symphony, staff pianist and coach at The Juilliard School, Teaching Artist at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and music history professor at Baruch College. She is a founding member of the contemporary chamber collective Away From Keyboard and plays with numerous ensembles and initiatives, including Wordless Music, PinkNoise, Soundbox Ventures, Metropolis Ensemble, Nu Deco Ensemble, Protestra, Sound Off: Music for Bail, After Arts Featured Artists, the Center for Musical Excellence, and Concerts for Compassion. In her free time she enjoys frequenting art museums and aquariums, playing board and video games, birding, and reading science fiction.