Molly Carr
Hailed as “one of the most interesting interpreters of the viola today” (Codalario Spain), violist MOLLY CARR enjoys a diverse musical career as recitalist, chamber musician, educator, and artistic director. Her “intoxicating” (New York Times) and “ravishing” (STRAD) performances have taken her across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, as well as on CNN, National Public Radio, and BBC World News. Named by the Sandi Klein Show as one of America’s leading “Creative Women,” she was honored in 2018 at the United Nations and awarded the Pro Musicis International Father Eugène Merlet Award for Community Service for her work as the Founding Director for the nonprofit Project: Music Heals Us. Ms. Carr is also the recipient of international performance prizes and awards from the Primrose International Viola Competition, Chamber Music America, Davidson Institute, Virtu Foundation, and Music Academy of the West Alumni Enterprise Awards, among many others.
Ms. Carr is the violist of the Juilliard String Quartet and the Carr-Petrova Duo, and collaborates regularly with many of the world’s most beloved classical artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Emanuel Ax, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Pinchas Zukerman. She appears annually on many of the world’s premiere stages, including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Disney Hall, The Kennedy Center, Concertgebouw, Salzburg’s Mozarteum, and London’s Wigmore Hall, and is also a frequent performer and faculty member in festivals around the world – including the Marlboro Music Festival, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Meadowmount School of Music, Perlman Music Program, and the Juilliard School’s annual Juilliard String Quartet Seminar.
Highlights of recent seasons include the Juilliard String Quartet’s world premiere performances of Jörg Widmann’s String Quartets No. 8 & No. 10 across North America, Europe, and Asia – including a performance in Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal which was subsequently released on Deutsche Grammophon’s STAGE+ in Spring 2025. Additional highlights include and a sold-out recital debut in Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall – praised by the Classical Post as “deeply moving […] categorically astonishing in its beauty, ensemble, artistry, quality of sound, and almost uncanny ability to draw into the music” – and solo recitals at the United Nations, Smithsonian, Jerusalem Music Center, Sala Maria Cristina in Spain, Rikers Island, and the Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Palestine.
Ms. Carr is honored to have commissioned and premiered more than a dozen new works for the viola repertoire, including “In Memoriam” by James MacMillan premiered in 2023 at YellowBarn, “The Blue Hour Duo” by Kenji Bunch premiered in 2024 at Lincoln Center, and the “Novel Voices Suite” by Fernando Arroyo Lascurain premiered in 2019 at Carnegie’s Weill Hall. Additional premieres include works by Andrea Casarrubios, Michelle Barzel Ross, Henrique Eisenmann, Remy Le Boeuf, and J.P. Jofre. The 2025-2026 Season will see the Lincoln Center premiere of “The Hill We Climb Suite for Viola and Piano” – a six-movement suite of works inspired by Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, composed by six different Americans with uniquely diverse backgrounds and ethnic heritages. Ms. Carr is also an enthusiastic champion of the creation and addition of new viola/piano duo arrangements to the repertoire – regularly adding new transcriptions of both newly-discovered and well-loved works of all genres to the viola/piano duo literature. Additionally, as a member of the Juilliard String Quartet, Ms. Carr looks forward to continuing the quartet’s 80-year legacy of annually commissioning new works for the string quartet repertoire.
On International Women’s Day in 2024, the Carr-Petrova Duo released its most recent album entitled HERS on EmpowHers Records to critical acclaim; comprised entirely of works by female composers, the “…joyful, heartfelt, formidable” (Textura) album vibrantly celebrates the vision, strength, resilience, and vital contributions of the female sex throughout history. The duo’s debut album Novel Voices, released on the Melos label in 2019, was chosen by Spain’s Classical Music Magazine Ritmo as one of its “Top 10 CDs of the Month,” praising the Duo’s performance of the Rebecca Clarke Sonata as “the best interpretation of this sonata to date.” Codalario Magazine also gave the album its “Superior Quality” award and named it “Top Album of 2020,” stating, “It would be hard to debut better than this.” Ms. Carr’s other discography includes Hommage and Inspiration with the Iris Trio (Coviello Classics), Every Moment Present with the Solera Quartet (Contact Point Records), an album of George Enescu’s Chamber Music (NAXOS), and an album of Jennifer Higdon’s Viola Sonata and early chamber works also on the NAXOS label. Upcoming recording projects include a multi-media release of the complete Bach Cello Suites on EmpowHers Records as well as an all-American viola-piano recital program on the NAXOS label.
Ms. Carr is the Founder and Artistic Director of the award-winning non-profit Project: Music Heals Us (PMHU) – an organization which creates compassionate communities, builds unlikely connections, and defies social barriers by bringing high-quality, interactive music programming to individuals in carceral systems, healthcare settings, and under-resourced communities. While she has had the great honor of performing around the globe in such revered venues as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, etc., through her work with PMHU she has had the even greater honor and privilege of stepping behind prison walls to witness “hardened criminals” soften and weep at the sound of Beethoven string quartets; of standing at the bedside of hospice patients to offer Mozart duos as a musical moment of solace; of visiting international slums and refugee camps to create a safe space for traumatized children to dance, sing, smile and freely express themselves for the first time in years.
Ms. Carr serves on the Viola Faculty of her alma mater, The Juilliard School, where she studied with Heidi Castleman and Steven Tenenbom. Additional teachers and mentors include Pinchas Zukerman, Patinka Kopec, Roger Tapping, Merry Peckham, and Virginia Blakeman Lenz.
Ms. Carr resides with her husband Oded Hadar in Harlem, where she is mother to a few too many plants, a precious little boy, and a crazy oversized pooch named Moochie.
