A native of Pennsylvania, Esther took her first piano lessons at age five and began to study violin at age seven.  Along with her four sisters, who also studied violin and piano, Esther grew up playing music in her church and later joined the Youngstown Symphony Youth Orchestra, where she served as Assistant Concertmaster. As a winner of her youth orchestra’s concerto competition, Esther soloed with the orchestra in the spring of 2005.

Esther attended Calvin College, where she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in history and music in 2009. While at Calvin, Esther helped found the Gioioso String Quartet and also led the Calvin Orchestra as concertmaster. In 2008 she won the Calvin College Concerto Competition and performed the Sibelius concerto with the orchestra. Esther received her Masters’ degree in Violin Performance from the University of Memphis in 2011. She recently completed an Artist Diploma program at the University of Memphis, which involved performing regularly in the Memphis Symphony and studying privately with her teacher, Soh-Hyun Altino.

In the past few years, Esther has performed solo recitals in Memphis, TN, Grand Rapids, MI, and Grove City, PA. She returned to Grand Rapids to perform the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Calvin College orchestra in fall 2012. In 2011, Esther was invited to Jakarta, Indonesia to perform the Mendelssohn Concerto with the Jakarta Symphony.  While a student at Calvin, she traveled with small ensembles of fellow students to perform in both England and Argentina. She has participated in the Masterworks Festival, the Calvin College String Summit, Opera in the Ozarks, and the National Orchestral Institute.