About Tori Gillen

Tori was born and raised in John Creek, Georgia where she currently resides. Having grown up in a musical family she was introduced to its fundamentals at infancy through The Music Class programs. As a young girl she took piano lessons for several years, but became more interested in the violin when her elementary school's orchestra program introduced it to her. She began learning violin at the age of 9 and has been playing ever since for the last 17 years. In high school she was gifted a new violin by her parents and also began taking private lessons outside of school. She attended Johns Creek High School for 4 years from 2011-2015 where she was a member of the nationally recognized orchestra program led by Young Keun Kim. During her time in high school she played in the Sinfonia and Philharmonia level orchestras where she maintained positions as section leader as well as third chair, 1st violin by the end of her senior year. She also learned viola at this time. Under Mr. Kim's direction, she was given an exceptional education in music history, theory, technique and artistry as well as a variety of performance and service opportunities. She has performed professional scores in chamber and symphony orchestra settings across several musical genres including but not limited to classical, contemporary and fiddle. After graduating high school in 2015, she moved away from studying classical composers to explore more contemporary and pop works. She is especially fond of Lindsey Stirling and has mastered many of her original solos.