Najette Abouelhadi

Moroccan-Italian cellist, Najette Abouelhadi is an active orchestral musician with a passion for community connectivity and inclusion. This coming fall, Ms. Abouelhadi will start as a Project Inclusion Fellow with the Chicago Sinfonietta and with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. Her love of orchestra started at the age of seven, and she has since gone on to be principal cellist of the Music Academy of the West Festival Orchestra, the Peabody Symphony Orchestra, the Music Academy International Orchestra based in Trentino, Italy, among others. She has performed in concert with David Daniels, Denyce Graves, Marina Piccinini, Matt Aucoin, and Leon Fleisher. Most recently she branched out of the classical world and performed a sold-out show with Kygo at The Anthem in Washington D.C. She has studied and been coached by some of the most prominent musicians of our time most notably the String Quartet Seminar at Music Academy of the West with the Takacs Quartet, and the Beethoven Institute with the Brentano Quartet. From a young age Najette has been invested in her community. After being a recipient of the Presidential Community Service Award for six years, Najette has been committed to Peabody’s Creative Access and Peabody Sinfonia. In both capacities, Najette created and supported relationships with local Senior Centers, hospitals, and rehabilitation centers to bring Peabody student performers out into the community. She received both her Bachelor’s and Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Institute studying with Alan Stepansky.