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Nicole Sutterfield

Nicole Sutterfield, assistant principal viola in the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

A Minnesota native, Ms. Sutterfield has enjoyed a multi-faceted career from the Midwest to the Pacific coast. As an orchestral musician, Ms. Sutterfield has been a member of the Santa Rosa Symphony and Spokane Symphony as well as principal violist of the Mozart Classical Orchestra of Orange County. She has performed as a soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra and Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, as a backup musician on American Idol, and as special entertainment at the Academy Awards Governors Ball.

A former Miss Minnesota, Nicole used her year of service to champion quality music education, visiting over 20,000 students at 84 schools with a guest artist-in-residence program entitled “Music is Instrumental.” Since then, she has served as a Teaching Artist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Manager of Community Engagement Programs at the Colburn Conservatory, and the viola coach for the Spokane Symphony’s Young Musicians Education Programs. She has also participated in Arts Advocacy Days, lobbying for arts funding in both Minnesota and Washington, D.C.

Nicole won first place in the Chicago Viola Society competition, was a semifinalist in the international Primrose Memorial Scholarship Competition, and received a Non-Finalist Talent Award at the 2007 Miss America Pageant. Ms. Sutterfield holds a professional studies certificate from The Colburn School Conservatory of Music as well as a bachelor of music with a minor in journalism from the University of Minnesota. Prior teachers include Paul Coletti, Korey Konkol, and Alice Preves. Nicole is excited to be living in the midwest once again and looks forward to exploring the greater Milwaukee area with her husband, Matthew, and their son, Gregory.