Marion Peraza

Education

Conservatorio Simón Bolívar. Caracas, Venezuela. 

Chamber Music Artist Diploma. Wilfrid Laurier University. Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Masters in Performance. Miami University

Violinist Marion Peraza began her musical career as a member of Venezuela's Youth Orchestra El Sistema. As a member of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, she has toured Japan, USA, Mexico, Brazil, France and Spain, and participated in seven CD recordings for the Dorian Records label.

Ms. Peraza was selected to be part of the Latin-American Violin Academy under the tutelage of Jose Francisco Del Castillo. Through her tenure with the Academy, Marion found herself being a featured soloist with all major Venezuelan orchestras. This honor continued with her being a featured soloist with orchestras in the US and Canada.

As first violin of the Cuarteto de Cuerdas América, she has played festivals, universities, and concert series from Venezuela, Mexico and Colombia to Canada, Luxembourg, Germany and the United States, garnering many excellent press reviews along the way. She has collaborated with composers such as Joan Tower, Susan Botti, and Ricardo Lorenz and premiered works by composers Roland Vasquez, John Ferrito, Diogenes Ribas, Diana Arismendi, and Arcangel Castillo- Olivari.

Marion Peraza won the Miami University Concerto Competition in 1998, while attending Miami University, and was awarded the Battel Stoeckel Trust Award at Yale University the same year. In 2000, she won the Grand Prize and Honor Award in the Annual Competition of Spanish and Latin American Music at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and was given the Ohio Latino Arts Association’s Performing Artist of the Year Award in 2001. She received the Noveau Award for Diversity and Leadership in the Arts from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the 2018-2019 Ohio Private Teacher of the Year Award from the Ohio String Teachers Association.

Ms. Peraza has taught master classes at the American String Teachers Association, Ohio State University, Artists on Tour in Ohio, Yellow Springs Young Instrumentalists Workshop, Soundfest Festival in Cape Cod, University of Louisville Chamber Music Program, Festival de Música Latinoamericana in Colombia, Bermuda School of Music, Elmhurst College in Illinois, and the Simon Bolivar Conservatory in Caracas, Venezuela.

As a devoted pedagogue, Ms. Peraza is the director and owner of Peraza Music Workshop. She teaches both traditional and Suzuki methods, chamber music, and music theory. Her former students have attended, among others, the Julliard School, Indiana University, Miami University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. Ms. Peraza is the director and founder of the Encore Advanced Chamber Orchestra Summer program at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music.

She is the artistic advisor, coach and co-founder of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Noveau Chamber Players, a chamber music program for African-American and Latino High School students.

Marion Peraza was born in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. Her principal teachers include Jose Francisco Del Castillo (Simón Bolívar Conservatory), Margaret Pardee (Julliard School), the Tokyo Quartet, and the Vermeer Quartet.

Peraza Music Workshop

www.perazamusicworkshop.com

CSO Noveau Program

www.cincinnatisymphony.org/nouveau