Spotlighting Renowned Jazz-Classical Violinist Diane Monroe

For Diane Monroe (Violin ’80), performing in Carnegie Hall’s original Fiddle Fest—the landmark 1993 benefit concert for East Harlem’s Opus 118 violin program—was career-changing. It marked the first time she fully fused classical technique, jazz, and African spirituals on stage—an approach that would ultimately define her artistic path.   

The Fiddle Fest series brought Monroe’s distinctive violin playing to some of the world’s leading stages, including Switzerland’s Tonhalle Zürich. It also raised more than $250,000 to support Opus 118, helping expand access to violin training and opportunity for young Black violinists. 

“What I feel is at stake in my work is the courage and skill to abandon genre in order to make music that speaks distinctively from my own history, experience, and imagination,” Monroe said in an interview with the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. “I’m motivated by simply being able to communicate through this amazing language we call music.” 

Monroe went on to collaborate with leading jazz figures, including saxophonist Joe Lovano, composer-pianist Anthony Davis, and Philadelphia jazz titan Odean Pope. She later became first violinist of both the Uptown String Quartet and the Max Roach Double Quartet, two ensembles that fundamentally reshaped the role of strings in jazz. 

In 2018, Monroe undertook one of her most expansive projects to date: Violin Woman, African Dreams, a musical memoir and documentary funded by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. The work explores her life as a Black woman violinist, weaving together improvisation, sound, visual art, and spoken word.  

“With this project, I am challenging myself to not only disrupt musical classifications and hierarchies,” says Monroe, “but also to examine what it means for me to be an African-American woman.” 

Through a career defined by curiosity and courage, Diane Monroe has expanded the possibilities of the violin—creating space for new voices and new histories to be heard.  

Learn more about and listen to Diane Monroe.