Carissa Devenport

Biography

Carissa Devenport is a Graduate Teaching Assistant and Associate String Faculty member at Utah State University. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Violin Performance from Utah State University, where she studied under Rebecca McFaul and the Fry Street Quartet. During her undergraduate studies, she served as first violinist of the Caine String Quartet and as Concertmaster of the USU Symphony Orchestra, having previously held other leadership roles within the orchestra and performed as second violinist in the quartet. Additionally, she won the 2023 Utah ASTA Chamber Music Competition, and the USU 2024 Concerto Competition, performing the first movement of the Korngold Violin Concerto with the USU orchestra.

Carissa has appeared at prominent summer festivals, including the Round Top Festival Institute, where she performed with the Texas Festival Orchestra under world-class conductors such as Robert Spano, Benjamin Zander, Delayna Lazarova, Jeffrey Meyers, Dongmin Kim, and Charles Olivieri-Munroe. She also participated in the Prague Summer Nights Festival in the Czech Republic, studying with distinguished guest artists including David Kim (Concertmaster, Philadelphia Orchestra), James Burton (Conductor, Boston Symphony), and Tamas Varga (Principal Cellist, Vienna Philharmonic).

An active adjudicator in Utah, she has collaborated with acclaimed composers Gabriela Lena Frank, Nicolás Lell Benavides, and Stephen Mitton, premiering Mitton’s Juvenoia for String Quartet as part of the 2023 Crossing Borders Project.

She is continuing her violin studies with Rebecca McFaul and internationally renowned soloist, William Hagen, and will pursue a Master of Music degree in Violin Performance in 2026