Louise Owen, violin

Violinist LOUISE OWEN has been praised as "a brilliant performer" by the Boston Globe. Based in New York City and currently an associate violinist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, she has enjoyed a diverse musical path over the years encompassing a variety of genres. Louise performed annual chamber music concerts for a decade with world-renowned pianist Menahem Pressler, played three tours of North America and Europe with Barbra Streisand, and since 2011 she has served as concertmaster for Harry Connick Jr.in over 150+ performances and in recent recordings.

In addition to her current work at the MET opera, Louise frequently serves as guest concertmaster for various NYC-area orchestras, including the New York Pops, Greenwich Symphony, and Little Orchestra Society, among others. She made her Broadway stage debut opposite Christopher Walken in James Joyce's The Dead, and her other favorite Broadway orchestra credits include the smash hit The Producers as well as Lincoln Center’s productions of South Pacific and The King & I.

Born into a musical family in Southern California, Louise grew up studying piano with her mother and playing violin in orchestras conducted by her father. She received much of her musical training in Boston at the New England Conservatory. Her teachers included James Buswell alongside chamber music studies with Louis Krasner, Eugene Lehner and Patricia Zander. Upon moving to New York following graduation, she had the great fortune to study extensively with Joey Corpus.

Louise is nationally recognized for having an extremely rare ability called Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory. As the fifth person in the world to be officially identified with HSAM, she has been prominently featured twice on CBS’s “60 Minutes” in “Endless Memory” and its follow-up story “Memory Wizards”, the Emmy-nominated profiles about people with this most unusual memory.