BIO

Photo Credits: Erin McKinney
Costa Rican violist specialized in both historical and modern viola. She has collaborated with several historically informed orchestras and chamber ensembles such as Innsbrucker Festwochenorchester, Ensemble laBarocca di Milano, Academia Montis Regalis, Orkester Nord, Barokkbandið Brák, Ensemble Il Pegaso, Orchestra Gli Originali, Theresia Orchestra, Orquestra El Teatre Instrumental and others, performing in important venues in Spain, Italy, Azores Islands, the Netherlands, England, Iceland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, and Norway.
She has played in orchestra under the baton of conductors such as Alessandro de Marchi, Enrico Onofri, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Philippe Herreweghe, Giovanni Antonini, among others. She has recorded in different ensembles for labels such as Naxos, CPO, Lindoro and Da Vinci.
In 2018 she founded Altus Ensemble, where she researches unedited original repertoire for viola duo, and with whom she performed at the XIX Festival Internacional de Música Barroca de Costa Rica. Since 2021 she has been part of Thaleia Ensemble, with whom she recorded their first album and debuted at the Royal Palace in Madrid, as part of the Festival Internacional de Arte Sacro (FIAS). From 2016 to 2019 she was a member of Zaïre Ensemble, with whom she performed at the Utrecht Fringe Early Music Festival (2018), the “Victoria Eugenia” Theater in Donostia, and Fundación Caja Vital in Vitoria (Basque Country, Spain). With her string trio Looking Glass Ensemble she performed at the Festival Grandezze e Meraviglie (2018) in Modena, and for the Società del Quartetto di Milano.
She began her musical education in the youth programme of the University of Costa Rica and continued her studies with Jan Dobrzelewski. She earned a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude with a double major in anthropology and music in 2012, and in 2014 a master’s degree in viola at the University of Arizona as a student of Hong-Mei Xiao, where she held a Teaching Assistantship from the Ethnomusicology Department. In 2017 she obtained a master's degree in early music performance under the guidance of Emilio Moreno at ESMUC in Barcelona, and in 2022 a master’s degree in instrumental pedagogy (110 e Lode) at the Conservatory of Padova under tutelage of Fabrizio Scalabrin. She has also studied modern viola with Jonathan Brown (Casals Quartet), and historical viola with Gianni de Rosa and with Stefano Marcocchi. Her chamber music professors include members of the Casals Quartet, Lorenzo Coppola, Luca Guglielmi, Manfredo Kraemer and Andrew Ackerman. She has performed in masterclass for Paul Coletti, Diemut Poppen and Enrico Onofri. In 2018 and 2019 she won a scholarship with Academia Montis Regalis, in 2019 she was granted a BPYAP scholarship on Bach Cantatas, and in 2017 with the Nordic Baroque Orchestra.
Since 2021 her projects with Altus Ensemble have been supported by the Mount Parnassus Foundation in Calgary, Canada. As a music educator, she teaches violin, viola and introductory music lessons, and is interested in using music in participatory processes in communities. In this regard, she has held music workshops with the Association Il Portico (Dolo, VE), and in Luzzatto Dina Elementary School in Padova.