The “freedom” and “brilliance” (New York Concert Review) of violinist Rebecca McFaul has fashioned performances that “glide through with a dancer’s grace” (Charlotte Observer). As a founding member of the Fry Street Quartet, Rebecca has built her career around chamber music and enjoys collaborations with many of today’s great musicians and composers, and all that the medium of the string quartet offers in its fantastic literature, range of expression, and ability to connect with an audience.
The educational influences that have supported her path include undergraduate studies at the Oberlin Conservatory as a student of Marilyn MacDonald and graduate studies with Gerardo Ribeiro at Northwestern University as a Civic Orchestra Fellow. Under the mentorship of Marc Johnson of the Vermeer quartet, she founded the Fry Street Quartet. Shortly thereafter, the group received a three year “Rural Residency” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as invitations from the late Isaac Stern to give their Carnegie Hall debut, perform at the Jerusalem Music Center in Israel, and also to serve as Cultural Ambassadors to the Balkan States, a tour sponsored jointly by Carnegie Hall and the U.S. Department of State, all of which launched the quartet’s career.
Apart from the quartet, Rebecca has been a guest with the Bonneville Chamber Music Festival at Weber State University, the Tony and Friends Festival at Iowa State University, and Festival Amadeus in Whitefish, MT. She regularly performs sonata repertoire on both the CCA Faculty Chamber Music Series and the Fry Street Quartet Chamber Music Festival Concert Series, and also can be heard on the NOVA Chamber Music Series in Salt Lake City in mixed ensembles. Fry Street Quartet’s second violinist Rebecca McFaul once again demonstrated why she and her colleagues are first-class Bela Bartók interpreters. Joined by pianist Mayumi Matzen, her rendering of his Second Violin Sonata was outstanding in its mercurial flips of emotional character and its rakish writing. (Les Roka, The Utah Review 3/20/23)
Expanding the role of the arts in society has been of particular interest to Rebecca in recent years. One of the most visible expressions of this focus has been The Crossroads Project, an ongoing partnership between physicist and educator Dr. Robert Davies and the FSQ, which merges her two most passionate interests: music and humanity's relationship to the natural world. These interests are a natural outgrowth of a childhood of barefoot summers at the lake in Wisconsin’s Northwoods and a house full of classical music. This upbringing inspired appreciation and wonder at the workings of nature and established the value of artistic pursuit.
A devoted teacher, Rebecca is a Professor of Professional Practice in violin and chamber music at the Caine College of the Arts, Utah State University, where she has relished the opportunity to develop the String Program in collaboration with her colleagues. Her students have gone on to attend prestigious graduate school programs and summer festivals, won or placed in numerous competitions, and also have become excellent public school music educators. During the summers, Rebecca can be found teaching and performing at the Fry Street Chamber Music Festival held at Utah State University, and has also been a guest teacher at festivals such as Madeline Island Music Camp, Oficina de Musica de Curitiba, the Einfeldt Chamber Music Seminar, and Credo at Oberlin. Rebecca has also developed and offered popular online summer violin technique courses which have created an opportunity to work with a broader age range of violinists.
Combining science and art resulted in a more personal kind of partnership when Rebecca married physicist Dr. Robert Davies. In their spare time, they are busy experimenting with permaculture principles on their acre-sized yard, providing exceptional service for their cats, Rufus and Archibald, and retrofitting their 119-year-old home in pursuit of reaching net-zero.
Rebecca is privileged to perform on a violin made by Pietro Giacomo Rogeri, ca. 1720, generously on loan to her from a private foundation. Her bow, made by Nicolas Maire, is also on loan from a generous patron.