Rabia Brooke (b. 2001) “create[s] that magical moment with the audience and share[s] her interpretation, precise, and clear” (Art Link, Zagreb, 2024), captivating listeners worldwide. Equally at home as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player, she has collaborated with some of today’s most compelling musical voices, commissioning works from Shawn Okpebholo, Jennifer Higdon, Clarice Assad, Chen Yi, Lei Liang, Juhi Bansal, Elizabeth Younan, Stacy Garrop, and Mischa Zupko.
During her 2024–25 season with Nova Linea Musica, Brooke has established herself as an artist performing music that challenges conventional boundaries—“beautiful and cerebral, placing her work in a category that could be called avant-garde for the Millennium” (Third Coast Review, 2025). An advocate for new music, she actively commissions and premieres works that expand the violin repertoire for the 21st century, with a particular emphasis on amplifying the voices of female composers.
Recent highlights include performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Orchestra of the North Bohemian Theater under 2025 Grammy-nominated Maestro Loeb in the Czech Republic. She has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in major halls across Eastern Europe—Liechtenstein Palace (Bohuslav Martinů Hall, Prague), Chopin Academy of Music (Warsaw), Liszt Academy (Solti Hall, Budapest), Penderecki Academy (Aula Florianka, Krakow), Zagreb Academy of Music, and Palata Madlena (Belgrade)—as well as Carnegie’s Weil Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, and the Ravinia Festival, where she performed Bernstein’s Serenade alongside Maestro George Stelluto and Jamie Bernstein in celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s legacy.
Her chamber collaborations include Rachel Barton Pine, Black Oak Ensemble with pianist Pallavi Mahidhara, Formosa Quartet, principal players from London’s Royal Philharmonic and Royal Orchestras, Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra, and Fifth House Ensemble. Brooke is a laureate of numerous competitions, including the Cooper International, Fischoff National Chamber Competition, and the Musicians Club of Women, where she received the Farewell Trust Award. She is also a frequent performer on Chicago’s WFMT Radio.
Festival appearances include Kronberg Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Orford Musique, Vivace Festival, Sounding Point Academy, Musique Dans la Gers, Tibor Varga Academy, and the Curtis Institute of Music Young Artists Program, where she served as concertmaster under Joshua Gersen of the New York Philharmonic. Other projects include collaborations with Daniel Rowland for a Beethoven documentary and an appearance with Grammy-nominated banjoist Noam Pikelny and the bluegrass band Special Consensus. Rabia was featured in a special episode with renowned violinist Gil Shaham on Violinist.com.
Currently, Rabia serves as Artist-in-Residence for Nova Linea Musica in Chicago, premiering solo and chamber works. A Chicago native, she holds a BM from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Joseph Lin and Cathy Cho. She performs on the Lady Jeanne violin by Antonio Stradivarius, crafted in Cremona, Italy, c. 1731.
