Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Violinist Rebecca Beato awarded 2025 ENCORE Scholarship

In 2022, the IVCI created the ENCORE Chamber Music Scholarship, aimed at giving Black and Latinx students a unique opportunity to specifically study with one of the IVCI's illustrious Laureates at a summer festival. We congratulate violinist Rebecca Beato on being its 2025 recipient. She joins fellow violinists Bethlehem Kelly (2022), Javier F. Torres Delgado (2023) and cellist Brandon Leonard (2024).

Rebecca made her solo orchestral debut at age 10 and has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra. She has also performed with Joshua Bell, Charles Yang, the Kronos Quartet and Gustavo Dudamel, among many others. She currently studies at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles with Robert Lipsett.

She studied with 2014 Gold Medalist Jinjoo Cho at the ENCORE Summer Music Institute this in Cleveland, Ohio during their annual festival.

2025 Summer Festivals with IVCI Laureates

Throughout the summer, many of our Laureates stay busy running – and performing in – their own music festivals. Here are a few that you might check out if you live nearby.

As mentioned above, 2014 Gold Medalist Jinjoo Cho runs the ENCORE Chamber Music Festival in Cleveland, Ohio, which concluded this past weekend. Just celebrating its 10th anniversary, ENCORE is a three-week festival hosting 40+ public events including concerts, discussion panels, masterclasses, yoga classes and community engagement programs in nursing homes and youth camps around the city. String players aged 13 to 26 are selected to participate in its Summer Academy, which is an intensive performance and leadership training program for young musicians.

2002 Bronze Medalist Soovin Kim and his wife/pianist Gloria Chien are Co-Artistic Directors of the Chamber Music Northwest Summer Festival, which is currently in progress. This summer they will present the complete Brandenburg Concertos by Bach, masterclasses with prominent soloists, Bach's Goldberg Variations, free community concerts, and an all-star finale on July 27 including Miasma for Solo Violin by composer Nokuthula Ngwenyama. The work received its world premiere by 2006 Laureate Bella Hristova during the IVCI's 2021/22 Laureate Series.

Soovin and Gloria also run the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Vermont, which runs this year from August 16-24. Now in its 15th season, the festival features more than 20 public events including four major concerts, recitals, a free lunchtime concert at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Burlington, lectures, commission premieres, plus talks and demonstrations with artists and composers. The Festival also runs the ONE Strings program, offering instruction for musicians in grades 3-5.

The Moab Music Festival, which runs August 27 to September 12, presents performances of classical, jazz and Latin music in stunning indoor and outdoor venues including near the Colorado River and other pristine landscapes in eastern Utah. During the two-week festival, it supports approximately 20 concerts and events. Founded in 1992 by Leslie Tomkins and Michael Barrett, the festival is now run by 2014 Silver Medalist Tessa Lark.

Bella Hristova's new commissioning project harkens back to IVCI roots

If you don’t already follow 2004 Laureate Bella Hristova’s enewsletter Notes from Bella, you should! In her latest post, she describes her new commissioning project, Lineage, which draws inspiration from Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, which have a strong connection to the IVCI: Bella’s teacher was IVCI Artistic Director Jaime Laredo; Laredo’s teacher was IVCI Founder Josef Gingold; Gingold’s teacher was Eugène Ysaÿe. We’re extremely excited to learn of these commissions, and look forward to hearing them and eventually witnessing their transfer into the standard violin repertoire.