MARIA  VALENCIA

Born in Caracas, Venezuela.

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Violist Maria F. Valencia began her music studies at the Carabobo Music Conservatory where she played in the Infantile & Youth Orchestras, and in the Carabobo Symphony Orchestra. She then transcended her studies to the Simon Bolivar Music Conservatory and into the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela. She has performed with different other orchestras such Venezuela Youth National Orchestra, New Jersey Youth Orchestra, Peru National Orchestra, Gustav Mahler Symphony Orchestra, and Latin-American Symphony Orchestra. She has worked with conductors such as Eduardo Salazar, Joshua Dos Santos, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Simon Rattle and Claudio Abbado.

 

She holds a BM Performance degree from University of Kentucky, and a MM Performance degree from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro where she worked as Teacher Assistant under Scott Rawls. She has attended several music festivals within the United States and Internationally such as: Cincinnati Conservatory Music Festival, Cleveland Institute of Music Viola Workshop, Brevard Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Orford Music Center in Canada, Parma Conservatory-Italy, Musica en Compostela in Spain, and many others. Back at home in Venezuela she is considered founder of el Sistema’s Carabobo Music Conservatory. Her Major teachers include Santiago Garmendia, Margaret Karp, John Graham, and Scott Rawls.

 

She is currently the orchestra director at Lucas Middle School and Northern High School in Durham, NC. Her students hold principal and assistant principal positions at the District, State, and National level orchestras, and participate in performances such at Carnegie Hall in NYC, Oberlin Music Conservatory in Ohio, UNCG, and many more. 

 

She welcomes news students at her beautiful private studio located in Durham, NC.