biography
Sofia Gilchenok, musically described as “both stylish and entrancing” by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, began studying the viola at the age of 3 and is now a flourishing young artist. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the Juilliard School under the guidance of Misha Amory and is a recipient of the Jerome L. Greene Fellowship. Sofia participated in the 2023 and 2025 Kronberg Academy’s Viola Masterclasses working with Tabea Zimmermann, has served as the principal violist of Symphony in C since 2023, and frequently appears with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Manhattan Chamber Players, and NOVUS Orchestra. As a guest co-principal, Sofia performed with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra for their 25-26 season-opening concert at Carnegie Hall and tour.
She has had the privilege to work with many top artists, including Antoine Tamestit, Nokuthula Ngwenyama, Roberto Diaz, and Teng Li, to name a few. In addition, Sofia has been featured on NPR and has appeared in recital numerous times at Lincoln Center. She has also been presented as a soloist with various orchestras across the US and received first prize in many competitions, including the Adelphi Orchestra Young Artist Competition, Hartford Symphony Young Artist Competition, and more. Sofia was also invited to participate in the quarter-final round of the 2025 Hindemith International Viola Competition in Munich.
Drawn to repertoire and projects that dance on and outside the lines of classical music, Sofia has performed on both viola and voice with genre-bending and Grammy winning trio Time for Three and Peter Dugan and frequently puts on showstopping performances with Juilliard’s fiddle club. She also recently concluded a premiere project in collaboration with the Juilliard School and composer Melinda Wagner: a chamber-vocal work originally commissioned for the Brentano String Quartet which was reimagined into a staged opera and renamed “No Trouble: A Response to Dido’s Lament”.
An avid chamber musician, she has performed with the Brentano and Parker Quartets as well as members of the Dover and Orion Quartets, among many others, and is excited to be an artist at Marlboro Music Festival for the next few summers. Some of her past festival appearances include Music@Menlo, NUME Academy and Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Kneisel Hall Young Artist Chamber Program, and Morningside Music Bridge.
A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where she held the Tobe Amsterdam Fellowship, Sofia began her collegiate studies early at age 17, studying with Hsin-Yun Huang and Misha Amory for five years. She previously attended Juilliard’s Pre-College Program, where she studied with Hsin-Yun Huang, Molly Carr, Yi-Fang Huang, and Heidi Castleman.