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CarlaMaria Rodrigues, viola



CarlaMaria Rodrigues has been the Principal Viola of the San Francisco Opera since 1996.  At the age of 23, she became a member of the Minnesota Orchestra, where she was later appointed Assistant Principal Viola.  During her tenure with that orchestra, she was a featured soloist in Strauss’s Don Quixotewith Yo-Yo Ma and David Zinman, which was recorded live on MPR.  In 1999, she also began a long association with the Australian Chamber Orchestra as its Guest Principal Viola and was later appointed Principal Viola, where she stayed until 2005.

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Be sure to hear all of CarlaMaria Rodrigues’ 2013 Festival performances below

Sunday, July 14, 6:00 PM at St. Francis Auditorium
Tchaikovsky & Russian Romance

Monday, July 15, 6:00 PM at St. Francis Auditorium
Tchaikovsky & Russian Romance

Tuesday, July 16, 12:00 PM at St. Francis Auditorium
Beethoven at Noon

Wednesday, July 17, 7:30 PM at Simms Auditorium/Albuquerque Academy
Mozart & Brahms Plus

Thursday, July 18, 6:00 PM at St. Francis Auditorium
Mozart & Brahms Pus

Saturday, July 20, 5:00 PM at St. Francis Auditorium
Handel & Stravinsky Concertos

CarlaMaria Rodrigues has been the Principal Viola of the San Francisco Opera since 1996.  At the age of 23, she became a member of the Minnesota Orchestra, where she was later appointed Assistant Principal Viola.  During her tenure with that orchestra, she was a featured soloist in Strauss’s Don Quixote with Yo-Yo Ma and David Zinman, which was recorded live on MPR.  In 1999, she also began a long association with the Australian Chamber Orchestra as its Guest Principal Viola and was later appointed Principal Viola, where she stayed until 2005.

Chamber music activities have taken Ms. Rodrigues throughout the world with such artists as Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Rudolph Serkin, and Pinchas Zukerman.  She has toured extensively with Pinchas Zukerman as a member of the Zukerman and Friends Ensemble and has been an active participant at numerous festivals including Marlboro, Prussia Cove IMS, Santa Fe, Savannah, Verbier, Mecklenburg, and Sangat.  She has toured nationally and internationally with Musicians from Marlboro and has performed a series of chamber music concerts at Wigmore Hall with Steven Isserlis, Norbert Brainin, and Joshua Bell.  More recent performances have included appearances with the Emerson String Quartet, Daniel Hope, Lorenza Borrani, Menachem Pressler, and Anne Sofie von Otter.

Teaching has become a very important part of Ms. Rodrigues’s life and she is a regular guest teacher at the Jerusalem Music Center, where she coaches chamber music and orchestral studies and gives master classes to aspiring young musicians from all over Israel.  She also volunteers her time at the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation in Bombay, advising and teaching young children whenever her time permits.  CarlaMaria has also continued her association as a guest faculty member of the University of Sacramento and, for the last two summers, has been invited to coach an orchestral summer program at the University of Indiana.

A native of London, Ms. Rodrigues entered the Yehudi Menuhin School at the age of ten.  She studied violin and viola with Robert Masters, Margaret Norris, Felix Andrievsky, and David Takeno.  Her primary chamber music coaches included Peter Norris and Hans Keller.  During this time, she appeared regularly as soloist and chamber musician in London’s major concert halls and was heard on the BBC Radio and Television Network.