As founding member and first violinist of the Enso String Quartet, Maureen Nelson led the Grammy-nominated group for nearly two decades. Founded at Yale University in 1999, the quartet has been described by Strad magazine as “thrilling” and praised by the Washington Post for its “glorious sonorities…half honey, half molten lava”. The quartet quickly went on to win top prizes at the Concert Artists Guild competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition. Classical Voice praised the ensemble as “one of the eminent string quartets of our era.”

Maureen has captivated audiences from major concert stages around the world, regularly concertizing throughout North America and abroad. Her final seasons with the Enso included performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the Library of Congress, as well as extensive tours of Australia, New Zealand, Colombia, and Brazil. As a member of the quartet, Maureen held teaching residencies at Tanglewood, Interlochen, and Rice University. For their dedication to outreach in the community, the Quartet received the prestigious Guarneri String Quartet Award from Chamber Music America. Along with a busy teaching and touring schedule, Maureen has made several critically acclaimed recordings, including the string quartets of Alberto Ginastera, which was Grammy-nominated for Best Chamber Music Performance.

A native of Pennsylvania, Maureen was enrolled in Temple University’s Center for Gifted Young Musicians at the age of twelve, and began attending the Curtis Institute of Music shortly thereafter. As a winner of the Greenfield Competition, Maureen appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra when she was fifteen. While studying in Germany, she was concertmaster of the Detmolder Kammerorchester and has been a member of ROCO since 2010. Her teachers include Shmuel Ashkenasi, Jascha Brodsky, and Yumi Ninomiya Scott.

In 2016, Maureen became a full-time member of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.