Concetta Abbate (She/They) centers death, life, and their interplay in her work as a violinist, vocalist, and music composer. Her art invites contemplation, reverie, and play into spaces often avoided: grief, loss, decay, and taboo. Abbate uses beauty as an entry point to make complex sonic forms accessible to a diverse audience. 

​

Her music elegantly crosses genres, drawing on her classical training and decades of study in jazz, folk, and popular forms. Using her violin as an extension of her voice, she weaves enchanting story-songs that ask profound, challenging questions. Grammy.com describes her music as a mix of “Violin and delicate vocals that float between the worlds of Modern Classical, Neo-Folk, and poignant and poetic verse” 

​

Abbate is a disability advocate, composing music which explores her lived experience as a visually impaired person and synesthete. Mirror Touch (2020), her album of art songs exploring neurodivergent empathy and grief, was performed as part of the Convergence Seminar on Art and Synesthesia at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp in 2022 and referenced in the academic publication "Music and Synesthesia". Her recent Ridgewood-Glendale Soundwalk compositions commissioned by NYFA (2024) explore the use of music, sound and echolocation techniques utilized by visually impaired folks to navigate physical space.

​

Abbate’s composition, LAMINARIA (A Folk Horror Chamber Music Suite) written for 10 piece orchestra explores trauma through the metaphor of an underwater shadow figure. It has received awards from New Music USA, the Alice Ditson Fund, the Gilman Foundation,The Amphion Foundation,The Cheswatyr Foundation, ASCAP and BMI and was released as a studio length album on Composers Concordance Records (2024).

​

Abbate attended notable music and art residencies including the Rauschenberg Foundation in Captiva Island (2019) and most recently SWALE Environmental Arts Residency on Governors Island (2024). 

​

Her Dance scores, made in collaboration with choreographers from Arch Contemporary Ballet and Wendy Osserman Dance have been performed at NYC’s Lincoln Center, Sheen Center for Performing Arts as well as Theatre for the New City.

​

She has worked as a studio musician writing string arrangements and recording strings/vocals with a number of notable composers and ensembles including Jordan Lee’s Mutual Benefit (Transgressive), Jessica Ackerly (AKP) and Cameron Mizell (Destiny Records). 

In 2014 she founded a Music Education program called Teacup Music which provides sliding scale private music lessons. Her teaching work has received grants from Brooklyn Arts Council, Roothbert Fund and the Charles Mayer Foundation.

​

Abbate is a NEDA proficient Death Doula and runs a music and arts memorial service called Sound & Memory (www.SoundandMemory.com). Through this service she provides customized live music for funerals and celebrations of life, leads Death Education workshops and provides Death Doula Services to her community. Sound & Memory is fiscally sponsored by the Groupmuse Foundation.

She is a therapy dog handler providing volunteer animal therapy with her dog Pepper through NYC’s Good Dog Foundation.

​

Concetta is a voting member of the Grammys. She holds degrees in Music, Education and Anthropology from Smith College (BA) as well as Columbia University (MA).