Natalia Duarte

Natalia Duarte Jeremías is a Costa Rican musician currently based in Reykjavik, Iceland. She holds a double major degree in viola performance and anthropology, and master's degrees in modern viola, historical performance and instrumental pedagogy. Her artistic practice revolves around historical performance practice, exploring and expanding repertoire for the viola, (historical) improvisation and participatory practices in music pedagogy and performance.
She has performed with several historically-informed orchestras and chamber ensembles in Europe such as Innsbrucker Festwochenorchester (AT), Ensemble laBarocca di Milano (IT), Arianna Art Ensemble, Academia Montis Regalis (IT), Orkester Nord (NO), working with conductors like Alessandro de Marchi, Enrico Onofri, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Philippe Herreweghe, Giovanni Antonini, and Ruben Jais. She has recorded with different ensembles for labels such as Naxos, CPO, Lindoro and Da Vinci. 
As a chamber musician she played at the Utrecht Fringe Early Music Festival (2018), the “Victoria Eugenia” Theater in Donostia, and Fundación Caja Vital in Vitoria (Basque Country, Spain) with Zaïre Ensemble; at Festival Grandezze e Meraviglie (2018) in Modena, and for the Società del Quartetto di Milano (2019) with Looking Glass Ensemble; at the XIX Festival Internacional de Música Barroca de Costa Rica (2018) with Altus Ensemble and at the Festival Internacional de Arte Sacro (FIAS 2022) with Thaleia Ensemble.
In Iceland she has collabrated with ensembles like Barokkbandið Brák, Cauda Collective, Camerarctica, Capella Reykjavicensis, and Kammersveitar Breiðholts, performing in venues including Harpa, Skálholt, and Salurinn. She co-founded Kammerhópurinn ConsorTico with whom she performed at the first edition of the Reykjavik Early Music Festival in 2024. 
Natalia founded a pedagogical initiative inspired on Edwin Gordon’s Music Learning Theory (MLT) for babies and children from 0 to 6 years old. In 2024 she received a grant from The Children's Fund of Iceland (Barnamenningarsjóður) to develop her project 'A Music Moment/Tónlistarstund' in collaboration with the Nordic House. She also participated at the children's festival Kátt Barnahátíð in 2024. 
Natalia studied in her homeland at the University of Costa Rica and privately with Jan Dobrzelewski, with Hong-Mei Xiao at the University of Arizona, Jonathan Brown and Emilio Moreno at ESMUC (Barcelona), Gianni de Rosa (Scuola Civica di Milano), Stefano Marcocchi (Conservatorio di Verona), and Fabrizio Scalabrin (Conservatorio di Padova). She has won several scholarships including stages with Nordic Baroque Orchestra (Trondheim, 2017), Academia Montis Regalis (Mondovì, 2018, 2019), and the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme scholarship (Aldeburgh, 2019). 
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