Carly Scena is a violinist, violist, and vocalist currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Carly was born and raised in Falmouth, Massachusetts, where she still performs several times throughout the year.

Carly has built a diverse performance portfolio, spanning from chamber music collaborations with artists such as The Colorado String Quartet, The Telegraph Quartet, Dimitri Murrath, Kim Kashkashian, David McCarroll, and Gil Kalish to appearances on stage with Smokey Robinson, Sigur Ros, Arthur Verocai, Trans Siberian Orchestra, and as a violist on Samora Pinderhughes’s NPR Tiny Desk Home concert. In addition to her experience with standard classical repertoire, Carly has worked intensively to perform new music works. Notable performances include the Boston premiere of Gunther Schuller’s Quintet for Strings and Horn, composer Mason Bates’ Mercury Soul series, and performances with Callithumpian Consort at NEC under Stephen Drury, for which she worked with acclaimed composers such as Timo Andres, and Julian Anderson.

In 2017, Carly was the recipient of New England Conservatory’s Spark Award for entrepreneurship for an emerging artist residency “Chamber Music Falmouth,” which she piloted and artistic directed in 2017 and 2018 on Cape Cod.

Carly holds a Bachelor of Music from Boston Conservatory, a Masters of Music from New England Conservatory, and an Artist Certificate in Chamber Music from San Francisco Conservatory. Carly's teachers and mentors include violin and viola studies with Rictor Noren, viola studies with Dimitri Murrath, and vocal studies with Danielle Wertz.

As an educator, Carly teaches violin and viola both privately and through the Community Music Center in San Francisco's Mission district. She offers performance and collaboration opportunities to her students through bi-annual recitals and Suzuki play-ins.

Carly regularly performs as a pianist and vocalist a collection of dear-to-her-heart jazz, soul, and folk standards at a horse themed market in San Francisco’s Mission District. She sees her piano and vocal sets at “Horsies Market” as an integral and necessary component in reconnecting with her music and audience members.

Carly’s interests outside of music include long coffee-fueled walks through San Francisco, farmers market strolls to inspire her very messy MESSY cooking projects, movement practices like ballet and yoga. Carly also loves engaging in silly whimsical projects like baking a cake that looks like a rat, or tirelessly handcrafting miniature hay-bales for that one time that she dressed up as a Barn for halloween…

Rat Cake (2021) by Carly Scena and Sophia Lemaire