CarlaMaria Rodrigues

viola

CarlaMaria Rodrigues has been principal viola of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra since 1996. She won her first audition at the age of 23 with the Minnesota Orchestra, where she was later appointed assistant principal viola. While serving as the Minnesota Orchestra’s acting principal viola in 1995, she was a featured soloist in R. Strauss’s Don Quixote with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and conductor David Zinman in a performance that was recorded live on Minnesota Public Radio. Since moving to San Francisco, she’s been guest principal viola of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and principal viola of the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Chamber music activities have taken Rodrigues around the world with such artists as Yehudi Menuhin, Hephzibah Menuhin, Rudolf Serkin, Pinchas Zukerman, Steven Isserlis, and Daniel Hope. She’s toured in Europe, South America, Israel, and Australia as a member of the Zukerman and Friends Ensemble, and she’s been an active participant at numerous festivals, including the Marlboro Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, IMS Prussia Cove, Aldeburgh Festival, Savannah Music Festival, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, and Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.

In 2012, Rodrigues traveled to Italy to work on a recording project that featured chamber music works by Koechlin, and later that year she collaborated with Menahem Pressler, Daniel Hope, Lorenza Borrani, and the Emerson String Quartet at the Savannah Music Festival. The following year, she performed songs by Loeffler with mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter at the Savannah Music Festival, and later that summer she served as principal viola with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in Graz, Austria, under the direction of Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Other engagements have included chamber music collaborations with the Danish String Quartet; another tour with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, under the direction of Sir András Schiff; and appearances at the 42nd International Viola Congress in Porto, Portugal, where she gave a chamber music recital as a member of the Borrani Trio as well as a viola master class.

A passionate educator, Rodrigues has been a regular guest teacher at the Jerusalem Music Centre, where she coaches aspiring young musicians from all over Israel, including from the Young Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2018, she began her association as a lecturer with EUphony, a cooperative project of chamber music and orchestral training in association with several universities and music institutions in Europe. Rodrigues has also had a long association with the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation in Mumbai, where she mentors teachers and helps establish new education programs for young children. From 2016 to 2018, she was an adjunct professor of viola at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, and this past summer she participated at the Brixen Classics festival in Italy and the Salt Bay Chamberfest in May, and she was a guest faculty member for the NYO-USA and the Tanglewood Music Center. Her 2023 engagements include return appearances with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Tanglewood, and IMS Prussia Cove and serving as a guest teacher for the week-long intensive study course VIVACE . . . ma non troppo! in Florence, Italy.