Biography
As a violist with a broad background in community music-making, Deberly Kauffman Mills has been playing and teaching for over twenty years. In addition to many international tours, masterclass performances, and orchestral work, Deberly also actively works to create programs bringing music education and experience to underserved communities.
Deberly has toured and performed in venues across the globe, including a United Nations conference in Madrid, Spain, and performances in Canada, in Busan, South Korea, and in London, Manchester, and Oxford, England. Her U.S. performances include Avery Fischer Hall in New York City, Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, and Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall in Boston. As part of her commitment to performing new music, Deberly premiered a composition by Dominic Coles, an up-and-coming composer known for combining classical composition with jazz improvisation styles.
Deberly recently won Boston University's Bach Competition. She was also featured on NPR’s “From the Top” both as a soloist and a chamber musician. She was a finalist in the FOOSA concerto competition, and won first alternate in Manhattan School of Music’s Precollege Senior Strings competition. Deberly has performed in masterclasses for Lawrence Power, Jennifer Stumm, Csaba Erdelyi, Nicholas Cords, the Emerson String Quartet, and the Brentano String Quartet. Most recently, Deberly was featured as a soloist in Concert for One, a part of the Celebrity Series of Boston.
Deberly is currently principal violist of the Boston University Symphony Orchestra and the Boston University Chamber Orchestra. She has played with the Boston Civic Symphony, Cape Ann Symphony, Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, Bloomfield Symphony Orchestra, Princeton University Chamber Ensemble, and was principal violist of the Princeton University Orchestra.
Deberly’s career also includes nonprofit executive and finance nonprofit work. Deberly worked as the Finance and Grants Manager for several years for OpenBiome, a non-profit research institute, as Grants Director for the Juventas New Music Ensemble, and also consults on improving finance processes. Deberly founded and ran Strings Work, a program that provided free strings instruments, and music lessons to students and their families in communities where the arts budget was severely lacking. Deberly also founded and was co-President of Princeton’s chapter of the Modern Improvisational Music Association, creating workshops to make creative arts and music-making processes more accessible to local communities and students.
Deberly Kauffman Mills just completed her Master’s in Music with Michelle LaCourse at Boston University, and is starting her Performance Diploma with Professor LaCourse this fall. She graduated cum laude from Princeton University with a B.A. in Anthropology and a Certificate in Music Performance. Deberly’s senior thesis, entitled "The Vienna Philharmonic and 'Viennese Sound': Performing a Cultural Identity Extending Beyond the Sound Itself," investigated the emphasis on perception and historicity in crafting an orchestra's image.
Her previous teachers include Martha Strongin-Katz, Patinka Kopec, and Jessica Thompson. Deberly has received numerous scholarships to attend festivals including the Kent-Blossom Music Festival with the Cleveland Orchestra, Orford Musique, Fresno Opera and Orchestra Summer Academy, the Castleman Quartet Program, and the Heifetz Music Institute.