On their way Sarah E. Geller

When Sarah E. Geller, a violinist, says she has a following in Farmington, she’s talking about neighbors, friends, family and fans who have been listening to her perform since she was a girl.

“When I was 4, I sat through my older sister’s lessons, but my mom was convinced that it would be too much for me to take lessons. She made me beg and beg and beg until she said OK,” said Geller, who is 29 now and lives in New York City.

She’s back home this week as part of a classical music duo – with Colby professor and pianist Cheryl Tschanz – performing classical music at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 17 at Nordica Auditorium at the University of Maine at Farmington.

Geller was not yet 2 when her parents moved from Indiana to Maine. As a young musician, she took private lessons and attended music camps, including the prestigious Interlochen Arts Camp, before enrolling in the Manhattan School of Music.

These days, Geller is gathering a new crowd of followers as she travels throughout the country as a soloist and with chamber groups. After the gig in Maine, she’ll perform this fall at the “An Die Musik Live” series in Baltimore and has a return engagement this winter at the Donnell Library Center in New York City.

Although music is her passion and profession, Geller also works part time as director of a public school strings outreach program for violin. The rest of her time is spent practicing and taking lessons. For fun? She hangs out with friends, roller-skates, takes in a movie and walks the city.

Living in the Upper Manhattan artist enclave of Washington Heights for the last 11 years, Geller says she’s unlikely to return to Maine anytime soon, especially after making her Carnegie Hall debut in 2002 as an Artists’ International Special Presentation Winner.

Still, she said, the most important quality she learned growing up in Maine was loyalty. “It’s about remembering how you got where you got and who helped you get there,” she said. “Maine grounded me with strong roots.”