Freelance violist Clio Tilton delights in the diversity and excitement in her career. Seeking to share her gifts both through teaching and performing, she can be heard around the Bay Area in a wide range of groups: early music ensembles, symphony orchestras, chamber groups, and rock bands.

Clio performs regularly as a substitute with the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, the San Francisco Contemporary Players, Oakland Symphony, American Bach Soloists, and  as well as other regional orchestras. Sought after as a chamber musician, Clio has performed with the Friction Quartet, Classical Revolution, and is a founding member of  the Chamber Music Society of San Francisco. She has recorded for Time Warner with the Camerata de Lausanne, and has also been heard in recordings with Shajarian, Geographer, and Meklit.

Clio was named for the Greek muse of history and music. She started piano at age six, picked up a viola in fourth grade, and the rest was … history. She completed Oberlin's double degree program in viola performance and comparative literature, writing a senior thesis on the Japanese poet Ishigaki Rin. After earning her master's at Juilliard, she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study orchestral and baroque performance in Switzerland. During her two years studying in Lausanne and Geneva, Clio performed with Swiss ensembles such as l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Sinfonietta de Lausanne, and the Camerata de Lausanne.

Chamber music has always been, and continues to be, a central part of Clio's musical pursuits. She spent three formative summers at the prestigious Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in Blue Hill, Maine during college, and has coached chamber music with the Juilliard String Quartet, Misha Amory of the Brentano Quartet, and Sylvia Rosenberg. During her time at Juilliard she was a member of the award-winning Calla Quartet. In Europe she performed at the THY festival, and most recently has become passionate about finding ways to share chamber music with audiences on a deeply personal level through her work with the Chamber Music Society of San Francisco.