BIOGRAPHY

Peruvian violist Varinia Oyola-Rebaza has garnered international recognition as a soloist and chamber musician. A graduate of The Juilliard School and the Royal Academy of Music in London, she was awarded an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 2019 for her significant contributions to the field of music. Other honours include the Enterprise Award from the Royal Philharmonic Society, the Jerome L. Greene Fellowship from The Juilliard School, and the First Prize and Audience Prize at the International Chamber Music Competition "Massimo Antonelli" in Italy, as violist of the Alauda Quartet. 
Varinia has performed extensively across Europe, in venues and festivals such as Conway Hall, St. John’s Smith Square, Auditorio de la Diputacion (Spain), Schloss Weikersheim (Germany), Festival Dies Musicales (Spain), London Handel Festival, Festival Il Bemole sono blu (Italy), and St. Margaret´s Church at Westminster Abbey. Moreover, she held chamber music residencies at Snape Maltings and Le Dimore del Quartetto in Italy and was twice a scholar at the International Chamber Music Campus Jeuneusses Musicales Deutschland. 
As a soloist, she has performed with the Orquesta Sinfonica collaborated with and performed works of composers Andrew Norman, Garth Knox, and most recently, the viola concerto by Owen Leech. As a unique advocate of the viola as a solo instrument in Latin America, she performs frequently at the invitation of the Sociedad Filarmonica de Lima and as an Artist in Residence and soloist with several orchestras in her home country. Most recently, she gave the UK premiere of Peruvian composer Rafael Junchaya’s Yaravi for viola and piano in a recital at St. John’s Smith Square’s Lunchtime Concert Series. 
Newly interested in Historical Performance, she has performed with the Gabrieli Consort, members of the London Handel Players, and most recently, the Telemann Viola Concerto at the Belgrade Baroque Academy in Serbia, with the support of the Nicholas Boas Charitable Trust. A Southbank Sinfonia alumna; she currently freelances with London’s prominent ensembles. 
Her principal teachers are Heidi Castleman, Steven Tenenbom, Christine Rutledge and Garfield Jackson. Moreover, she has performed in masterclasses with Nobuko Imai, Mate Szücs, Barbara Westphal, and Yuri Bashmet at the Barenboim Said Akademie in Berlin. 
Varinia plays on a viola made by the contemporary luthier Hiroshi Iizuka, and a 19th-century French bow generously on loan from the Royal Academy of Music Museum Collection.