Biography of Elisa Rega
Elisa Rega is a concert violist, violinist, sitarist, singer, songwriter, and psychology researcher. As an violist, Elisa has enjoyed performing in orchestras across the United States, Canada, and Europe, and is currently the Assistant Principal violist for Symphony Tacoma and a section player in the Vancouver SymphonyOrchestra. In addition, she enjoys singing and playing jazz music, folk music, and raga on the sitar. More recently, she has started producing educational electronic music and hopes to expand upon the currently available educational music for higher levels of education.
Elisa is currently working as a psychology researcher and is conducting industrial and organizational psychology research in the Safety Climate Lab focusing on occupational safety and health at the Oregon Institute of Occupational HealthSciences within OHSU. She is a West Linn, Oregon native and obtained degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and College where she received a BA in Psychology and a BM in viola performance, and a Master of Music in viola performance from the New England Conservatory. While at Oberlin, Elisa started studying sitar under Hasu Patel, and later went on to continue studying Hindustani music under Peter Row at NEC. Elisa will be applying to PhD programs in psychology and hopes to integrate music into a specialty such as safety, health, and well-being intervention programs, clinical therapy, and learning and memory. Elisa started practicing educational psychology research in Taiwan where she investigated creativity enhancement and has since then published three scientific articles.
Elisa is a passionate teacher and an advocate for El Sistema inspired programs that provide free music education for underserved children. She enjoys applying the educational psychology principals with her students in group and private settings and attributes the success and enjoyment of her students to a holistic teaching that incorporates fun and well-being. In 2018 Elisa was the Director of the Revueltas Ensemble for the BRAVO Youth Orchestras, and from 2013-2015 Elisa was the Lead String Teaching Artist for the Laby Harmony Project of Ventura County, both of which are El Sistema inspired programs. Elisa is currently available for private violin and viola lessons.
Elisa enjoys mindfulness practices, being in nature, working with children, traveling, music and brain science, cooking, healthy living, the arts, and she recently became a certified yoga instructor.
