Zoe Kemmerling is a public interest lawyer and violist based in Oakland, CA. From 2008 to 2017, she pursued an eclectic musical career as a violist, Baroque violinist, writer, and administrator in Boston and throughout the northeast. She was active in the early music scene in Boston and New York City, playing regularly with ensembles including Grand Harmonie, Les Bostonades, and Trinity Baroque Orchestra. With three colleagues, she founded the period-instrument Emergence Quartet, which was featured on NPR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook and at the Lincoln Center Library. Zoe also helped to shape Boston’s dynamic new music scene through her work with Equilibrium Concert Series and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. She has taught violin, viola, and piano privately and in group settings. She was Publications Fellow in 2012 at the Tanglewood Music Center and remains in high demand as a writer of insightful and witty program notes.

Zoe earned her Bachelor’s degree in Music and English at UC Davis and Master of Music degree in viola performance at the Boston Conservatory (now the Boston Conservatory at Berklee), supplementing her musical studies at festivals including Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute, American Bach Soloists Academy, Cambridge Early Music Summer School, and the Saint Lawrence String Quartet Chamber Music Seminar (with Emergence Quartet).

In 2020 Zoe completed her J.D. at Harvard Law School and was admitted to the California Bar in January 2021. She is currently a Staff Attorney at Housing and Economic Rights Advocates, a nonprofit law firm dedicated to consumer representation and advocacy, where her practice areas include mortgage servicing and foreclosure prevention, student loans, and fair credit reporting.