Biography

I grew up in quite a musical family with my dad having been a singer and a multi-instrumentalist in his youth and both my cousins and their parents being musicians. My parents always knew they wanted me to do music and when I was four they signed me up for singing lessons and later on for solfeggio lessons. At the age of 6 my parents signed me up for the entrance exam of the music school in my city. I remember them wanting me to play the piano but I chose the violin. I played the violin until the age of 17 when my violin teacher left the school and I ended changing to the viola in order to study with a teacher I liked. After a few months of playing the viola I decided to completely stop pursuing the violin and later on applied to the Royal College of Music with the viola.

In school I developed my love for chamber music, especially after changing to the viola as I did a lot more of it and was going on tours with my string quartet. Later on, when I moved to London and started studying at the RCM as an award holder, I got the chance to perform with many different kinds of chamber groups. During my time at college I also gained more orchestral experience, getting the opportunity to play as principal viola of all the RCM orchestras and also having been nominated for orchestral schemes with the ENO, LSO and others. I got to work under the baton of Sir Antonio Pappano, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Simon Rattle and others, performing in the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Barbican Hall. Whilst in college I also won the Viola Prize and the Bach Prize twice. In that period I also won awards from international competitions, performed recitals and as a soloist of different orchestras, attended masterclasses to develop my solo and chamber music playing and was invited to festivals such as Open Chamber Music Prussia Cove and Encuentro de Santander. My playing has been influenced by my professor Nathan Braude as well as my mentor Alexander Zemtsov and also Lars Anders Tomter, Maxim Rysanov and Bryony Gibson-Cornish amongst others.

After graduating from the Royal College of Music in July of this year, I am now looking forward to this next chapter of my development as an artist in the professional world with Sinfonia Smith Square as well as to some upcoming competitions.