Nicole Allen

Ms. Nicole Allen BM, MM – Tier III Instructor – Violin/Viola

Nicole Allen is a native of Olathe, Kansas. She holds a Masters of Music in Viola Performance and Pedagogy. She completed her Bachelor of Music degree in Violin Performance at the University of Iowa under the tutelage of Dr. Scott Conklin.

Nicole started violin at the age of four with Marty Dennington of Black Swan Suzuki Strings and studied the Suzuki method with her until beginning university studies. During this time, she attended the Heart of America Suzuki Association conference annually as well as the Ottawa Suzuki Strings Summer Institute, where she worked with Brian Lewis and his mother Alice Joy Lewis, a protégé of Dr. Shinichi Suzuki. Nicole fell in love with music performance in high school, under orchestra director Cecily Mahan, and had the opportunity to perform in jazz, bluegrass, and musical theatre string ensembles. During her senior year, she was a member of the NafME All-National Orchestra (Grapevine, TX) and the Honor Orchestra of America (Indianapolis, IN).

While attending the University of Iowa she was active in the University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra, chamber orchestra, opera orchestra, Center for New Music, Preucil School of Music, and the University of Iowa String Quartet Residency Program. In the community, she was a member of the Southeast Iowa Symphony and Muscatine Symphony Orchestra. She was a finalist in the Iowa Center for the Arts Scholarship Competition in 2018, performing Mozart’s Violin Concerto in D Major, which is a favorite piece of hers. She is currently principal violist of the Arizona State University Symphony Orchestra and performs regularly at the Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium. She is also a member of ASU’s Herberger String Quartet, the university’s graduate quartet-in-residence.

Nicole joined the faculty at Arizona School of Music in 2021.

Education and Degrees Earned:

B.M. Violin Performance | University of Iowa, 2021

B.A. History | University of Iowa, 2021

M.M. Viola Performance/Pedagogy | Arizona State University, 2024

3 Fun Facts about Nicole: