This page has my musician bio and a teaching testimonial. Do you need something else? Please reach out through my contact page here.

Mia Bella D’Augelli: violinist

I’m a violinist, teacher, and composer exploring a varied life of music-making. On alternating days, you can find me getting into the weeds or improvising in solitude or with friends and students, playing brand new chamber music alongside traditional classical repertoire, and on stage with the Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestra. In 2014, I got a BA in Music Performance from Mills College, studying with Gloria Justen, and I continue to seek new perspectives. I moved to Maine in 2019 from Oakland, California, after visiting Portland once on tour with Charles Gorczynski’s Redwood Tango Ensemble. Aside from playing violin, I teach out of my home studio in Standish as well as through Gorham School of Music, and spend the rest of life enjoying outdoor and indoor adventures with her husband, Eric, and cat, Drogo. 

While living on the other coast, I was a member of the Town Quartet (a traditional string quartet) and Sl(e)ight Ensemble (flute/violin/piano trio of original compositions with Erika Oba and Jacob Lane), among other projects. I was assistant principal second violin with Livermore Valley Opera from 2015-2019, and for the 2017-18 season was the interim assistant concertmaster of the North State Symphony. As an orchestral musician, I started playing in the back of the second violin section at age 7 in a local community orchestra, the Paradise Symphony Orchestra. [You can read more about that here: https://www.musicmiabella.com/mmm/musicalmondaymemories-8]

Working with other living composers is a big part of my life, especially time spent with those listed above and Ian Carey, Brett Carson, Andrew Jamieson, Roscoe Mitchell, and Lewis Patzner. My collaborations often include venues that are not a concert hall, from art galleries to bars and living rooms, since I believe this is the future classical music (as it is the past).

While at Mills College, my chamber music coaches were Joan Jeanrenaud, William Winant, and Robert Schwartz, and my free improvisation and composition teachers were Fred Frith and Roscoe Mitchell. I take lessons to this day. I continued studying with Gloria Justen after college and have also worked with Charles Dimmick, Ramiro Gallo, Frederick Lifsitz, and Catherine Van Hoesen. As a teacher myself, I have been a guest chamber music coach at CSU Chico (with the Town Quartet), Hayward Odd Fellows Youth Chamber Music Project, and MTAC Butte County, and part of ensembles in residence at CSU Stanislaus (with Juxtapositions Chamber Ensemble) and Tango for Musicians at Reed College (with Redwood Tango Ensemble).

As a teacher, I am attentive to each player’s drive to learn, working on technique and musicianship with the help of established method books and personally developed material. I encourage students to use their own passion and knowledge of music to create improvisations, exercises, and written pieces as they progress. I have a Suzuki teacher certification and believe that through immersion and exploration, anyone can embrace their creativity and be a musician.  

Teaching testimonial

Mia Bella D’Augelli was my violin teacher for about 2 years in Alameda CA, until she moved to Maine in June 2019.  Although the great majority of Mia’s students in Alameda were children, I am an older adult who had re-started taking lessons as an adult, after two large gaps of 15 and 25 years of not playing at all.  In the last 15 years, I had studied with two different teachers before Mia Bella.  Mia Bella taught me a great deal during these two years.  For example, although I had tried, I still could not bounce the bow.  I had given up.  She insisted that I could do it, and she started me on a series of exercises that gradually taught me how to do spiccato, etc.  It was such a break-through for me.  I am still working on it, after 2 years, but now I am much more comfortable. 

She focused also on how I held the bow, and how my hand was positioned, and the sound I produced, shifting, precise finger action and timing, and on precise intonation.  She is very attentive and has high standards. She is an outstanding violinist, and comes from a musical family.  She is very pleasant but honest about how I was doing.  She chose pieces that were appropriate for me, but always challenging, although I also chose pieces from ones that I had heard and loved.  She chose duets to play with me, which was so much fun.  I joined a local orchestra and she also helped me with those pieces.  I was very sad when she decided to move to Maine.  I recommend her most highly; anyone who has Mia Bella as a teacher will be very lucky.

-Janet (adult student)