A total of six string players from both the junior and senior divisions have won more than $100,000 in prizes in the 2025 competition’s final rounds over the weekend

First Place Gabriela Lara PC Brian Hatton

First Place winner, Senior Division: Gabriela Lara; credit: Brian Hatton

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The winners of the 28th Annual Sphinx Competition have been announced. Three finalists competed for each of two divisions in the final rounds, which took place at the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center in Detroit, MI, in an honours concert on 24 January for the junior division and on 25 January in a finals concert for the senior division.

All junior and senior division finalists performed with the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, the all-Black and Latino orchestra comprising top professionals from around the US under the direction of Lina Gonzalez-Granados (Sphinx Medal of Excellence recipient and resident conductor for Los Angeles Opera). The finals concert also featured the world premiere of Daydreaming for Orchestra by composer Levi Taylor.

Senior division winners (18–30)

First Prize: violinist Gabriela Lara

Second Prize: violist Paul Aguilar

Third Prize: violinist Brendon Elliot

Audience Choice Prize: violist Paul Aguilar  

Junior division winners (17 and under)

First Prize: violinist Jacqueline Rodenbeck 

Second Prize: cellist Sonya Moomaw

Third Prize: violinist Kai Isoke Ali-Landing

As the 2025 first prize winner of the senior division, Gabriela Lara received the $50,000 Robert Frederick Smith Prize and a slate of solo appearances with major American orchestras. Paul Aguilar and Brendon Elliot received $20,000 and $10,000, respectively; Aguilar also garnered $5,000 for the audience choice prize. 

In the junior division, Jacqueline Rodenbeck received $10,000 and multiple solo appearances with major orchestras. Cash prizes of $5,000 and $3,000, respectively, went to  Sonya Moomaw and Kai Isoke Ali-Landing.

The panel for the 2025 competition comprised Danielle Belen, professor of violin at the University of Michigan and Sphinx Medal of Excellence recipient; Joseph Conyers, principal bass with the Philadelphia Orchestra; Charlotte Lee, President and Founder, Primo Artists; Joshua Roman, cellist, composer and curator; Abhijit Sengupta, director of artistic planning at Carnegie Hall; Melissa White, founding violinist of the Grammy Award-winning Harlem Quartet; and Mark Wilson, executive director of Zoellner Arts Center.

Originally from Barquisimeto, Venezuela, Gabriela Lara began her violin studies at age 8 and was a member of El Sistema in Venezuela. Since moving to the US in 2017, Lara has been recognized as the second-place winner in the 2021 Sphinx Solo Competition and winner of the 2021 Frank Preuss International Violin Competition. In 2022, Lara received a Bachelor of Music degree in Violin Performance from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, where she was a student of Almita Vamos; she received a master’s degree in Suzuki Pedagogy from Roosevelt University in 2024.

Lara became the first ever Chicago Symphony Orchestra Fellow in the 2022-23 season and continued as the Michael and Kathleen Elliott Fellow in the 2023–24 season. She was appointed to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in September 2024 and became the first Chicago Symphony Orchestra musician appointed by Music Director Designate Klaus Mäkelä, beginning her position as a member of the first violin section effective 27 January 2025.

First Place Jacqueline Rodenbeck, Violin PC Brian Hatton

First Place winner, Junior Division: violinist Jacqueline Rodenbeck; photo: Brian Hatton

Jacqueline Rodenbeck, 16, hails from Oro Valley, Arizona, and has been playing violin since 2013. She studies under Danwen Jiang at Arizona State University. Rodenbeck is concertmaster of the Tucson Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and has placed in local and international competitions including the Bach International Music Competition, the International Moscow Music Competition and the Clara Schumann International Competition chamber division. 

The Sphinx Competition is a national competition held in the US offering young Black and Latino classical string players a chance to compete under the guidance of an internationally renowned panel of judges and to perform with and receive mentorship from established professional musicians

Finalists in both the junior and senior divisions have the opportunity to perform with the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, a unique all-Black and Latino orchestra comprising top professionals from around the country, and compete for a total of nearly $100,000 in prizes, including the top Robert Frederick Smith Prize. All semi-finalists and finalists have access to scholarships and fine instruments through the Sphinx Music Assistance Fund. Former laureates of the Sphinx Competition include artists such as Joseph Conyers, Patrice Jackson, Sterling Elliott, Randall Goosby, Tai Murray and Elena Urioste, all of whom have gone on to major orchestral and solo careers.

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