About the Participants

Julimar Gonzalez, Sphinx Laureate

Born in 1996 in Maracay, Venezuela. Julimar Gonzalez began her violin studies at the age of 7 with Professor Heemath Jahoor at the world-renowned music program known as ‘El Sistema’. She was chosen to be part of the first violin section of the Jose Felix Ribas Youth Orchestra in 2006 and later in 2007 became a member of the National Children’s Orchestra of Venezuela conducted by Maestro Gustavo Dudamel and Sir Simon Rattle. During that same year she joined the Latin American Academy of Violin where she studied under Maestro Jose Francisco Del Castillo until 2013.

She has appeared as a soloist in various cities around Venezuela with conductors such as Pablo Castellanos, Carlos Riazuelo, Manuel López Gómez and Joshua Dos Santos including performances with Maestro Gustavo Dudamel and the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, and recently performed with the Roosevelt University Orchestra conducted by Maestro Emanuele Andrizzi. She has also performed overseas recitals in Barcelona, Spain at the Vesprades de Tardor Music Festival and she has spent her summers at Chautauqua Music Festival and Bowdoin Music Festival in the United States during consecutive years since 2014.

She has participated in masterclasses with renowned violinists like Ilya Kaler, Ida Kavafian, Rachel Barton Pine, Albert Markov, Donald Weilerstein, Maurice Hasson, Michaela Martin, Kristoff Barati, Kathleen Winkler and others.

Ms. Gonzalez in 2019 won the concerto competition at Chicago College of Performing Arts and got first place at the Illinois American String Teachers Association Competition of the same year. In the past she has also been a semifinalist of the Sphinx Competition in Detroit.

She is currently cultivating a passion for teaching violin to younger students and flourishing since her students are beginning to win regional and international competitions.

Since 2013 Ms. Gonzalez is a student of Almita and Roland Vamos. She recently graduated from Roosevelt University where she pursued her bachelor’s degree in Violin Performance and currently continues her studies at the same school pursuing a Performance Diploma.

Alex Goldberg, Yale University

Alex Goldberg, 20, a violin student of Ani Kavafian, is jointly pursuing a Master’s Degree at the Yale School of Music and a Bachelor’s Degree at Yale College. He previously studied with Donald Weilerstein at the New England Conservatory of Music. Alex has attended and performed at the Sarasota Music Festival, the Heifetz International Music Institute, the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, the Aspen Music Festival, and Music@Menlo, where he received a merit scholarship, and will be attending the Taos School of Music. He has had master classes with artists including Pinchas Zukerman, Ben Zander, Fang Lei, Merry Peckham, Jorja Fleezanis, the Pacifica Quartet, and Gilles Apap. Alex recently played the Brahms violin concerto with the Yale Symphony after winning Yale’s William Waite concerto competition. He made his debut as a soloist with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra playing Vivaldi’s Spring at age 8, his Carnegie Weill Hall debut at age 11, and performed in Boston’s Jordan Hall for NPR’s From The Top. He has also performed as a soloist with numerous orchestras in the Boston area, including the Concord, Brockton, and Quincy symphony orchestras. An avid chamber musician and recitalist, Alex is also passionate about combining concerts with lectures on music, art, and literature. Recent projects in this vein include a lecture-recital on the links between Goethe, Brahms, and Romanticism in literature and music and a live-streamed recital on the concept of motion in Plato, Euripides, Bach, and Ysaÿe as part of the Literary Music Series. Upcoming highlights include a performance as a soloist with the Yale School of Music’s Philharmonia Orchestra.

Shenae Anderson, Yale University

Shenae Anderson, 22, from Draper, Utah, began studying the violin at age three. She made her concerto debut with the Utah Symphony at age ten in Abravanel Hall and has since soloed with them three additional times. She has studied at the Aspen Music Festival, Verbier Festival, and Music Academy of the West all on full scholarship where she worked under world-renowned conductors Valery Gergiev, Sir Simon Rattle, Larry Rachleff and Gianandrea Noseda. She has participated in masterclasses with violin virtuosos James Ehnes, Andres Cardenes, and Sarah Chang and has performed alongside famed musicians Roberto Diaz, Joseph Silverstein and Gil Shaham. Accepted to the Juilliard School at age 16, she completed her Bachelor’s degree in May 2019. She has served as Assistant Concertmaster and Second Violin Principal in the Juilliard Orchestra. In the spring of 2022, she will participate in a residency alongside the London Symphony Orchestra as a winner of the MAX Keston Fellowship. Currently, she is pursuing a Masters in Music at the Yale School of Music studying with Ani Kavafian. Previous teachers include Masao Kawasaki and Eugene Watanabe.

Hannah Tarley, Yale University

American violinist Hannah Tarley began playing the violin at age two.

A Winner of Astral Artist’s Management 2018 National Auditions, Hannah has soloed with orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Academy of Conducting at Aspen Orchestra, Kiev Soloists, Lynn Philharmonia Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Hannah has performed and worked with leading musicians and composers such as Itzhak Perlman, Jake Heggie, Mark Kaplan, Hsin-Yun Huang, Nobuko Imai, Shlomo Mintz, Itamar Zorman, Ralph Kirshbaum, and Shmuel Ashkenasi. She has participated in music festivals including the Perlman Music Program, Music@Menlo, International Musicians Seminar Prussia Cove, Olympic Music Festival, Kronberg Academy Masterclasses, Heifetz International Music Institute (Artist-in-Residence), Seiji Ozawa Academy, and Aspen Music Festival and School. As both a soloist and chamber musician, Hannah has debuted in some of the world’s most acclaimed concert halls, including Davies Symphony Hall, Carnegie Hall, The Kimmel Center, Wigmore Hall, Mozarteum, Royal Festival Hall, Gewandaus, and the Library of Congress.

Hannah is the Founder and Artistic Director of Notes By The Bay Music Festival,
an exciting children's summer music program in California. Now in its 6th season, it is
is a one-of-a-kind classical music festival for young musicians that brings together the magic of music, poetry, and theater. Notes By The Bay focuses on cultivating individual creativity, sense of imagination, and the importance of self-expression through words and music.
The festival features ensemble chamber music playing, workshops and masterclasses in music and theater, and free concerts for the San Francisco Bay Area community.

She also performs with Violins of Hope, an organization that brings to life the history of the Holocaust and the stories of its victims and their violins.
Hannah was one of the featured violinists during VOH’s 2020 San Francisco residency, which included performances in schools, museums, churches and synagogues all across the

Bay Area. Culminating in a performance on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz at Congregation Emanu-El, Hannah performed Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s mesmerizing composition, Intonations.

Previously a full scholarship student at the Colburn School studying with Robert Lipsett, Hannah received her Bachelor’s Degree, with First Class Honors, from the Royal College of Music in London under the tutelage of Mark Messenger.
She received her Master’s Degree from the Juilliard School, under the guidance of

Itzhak Perlman, Donald Weilerstein and Catherine Cho. She was awarded the Irene Land Scholarship, and the Norman Benzaquen Career Advancement Grant upon graduation.
She is currently pursuing a Master of Musical Arts degree at Yale University,
working with Ani Kavafian, and was recently awarded the the Horatio Parker Memorial Prize.