Chantel C. Davis

Chantel found an interest in violin at the age of five, picking up their sister’s instrument. They began to figure out tunes that they had been listening to by ear; a moment that would later prompt a fitting interest in the Suzuki method.

After several years of being taught through traditional methods by Dave Nelson (a classical guitarist) Davis, at age eight began private lessons with Karen Weckerly, their first Suzuki Instructor. This program was taught through the Community School of the Arts at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, IL. Chantel soon began furthering their private Suzuki lessons with Suzuki pedagogue Ann Montzka-Smelser until the age of 18. Davis officially became a certified Suzuki Violin Instructor themselves in the summer of 2017, and is now certified through Suzuki Violin Book 4.

This time spent at the Community School of the Arts would also introduce Davis to their future college, where they received a Bachelor of Music and a graduate Performer’s Certificate with an emphasis in Violin Performance with Mathias Tacke. While at NIU, Chantel won the concerto competition in 2021 and served as concertmaster for the NIU Philharmonic from 2017-2021. In 2021, their quartet, the Esoteric Ensemble was quartet in residence at the Icicle Creek Chamber Music Festival in Leavenworth, WA. Chantel taught private violin lessons through the Community School of the Arts at Northern Illinois University, and was a Suzuki violin faculty member of Cambridge Studios in Pingree Grove, Illinois, following in the footsteps of their previous violin instructors. In 2021, Chantel attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and received their Masters in Violin Performance in 2023 under the instruction of Cordula Merks and Kay Stern.

Currently, Davis is a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison as a member of the graduate quartet in residence, the Marvin Rabin String Quartet. They were concertmaster of the UW Madison Symphony Orchestra in 2023 and currently play with the Rockford Symphony Orchestra. They are currently Suzuki Violin Faculty at the Music Academy in Rockford and also teach through the Community Music Lessons program at the Mead Witter School of Music at UW Madison.