The Dolphins Quartet and violinists Ana Isabella España, Risa Hokamura and Ava Pakiam each receive $5,000
Charlotte White’s Salon De Virtuosi has announced the recipients of its 2025 career grants, each worth $5,000. This year’s string winners are the Dolphins Quartet and violinists Ana Isabella España, Risa Hokamura and Ava Pakiam. Grants were also awarded to pianist Chaeyoung Park and composer Elaina Stuppler.
Formed at the Juilliard School in New York, the Dolphins Quartet comprises violinists Luke Henderson and Issac Park, violist James Preucil and cellist Ian Maloney. The quartet is currently the Arts Leadership Ensemble for Project: Music Heals Us and was a finalist in the 2024 Concert Artists Guild competition.
US violinist Ana Isabella España won first prize in the 2024 Sphinx Competition’s junior division, a 2023 YoungArts Award, and the silver medal at the 2023 Music Teachers National Association Senior Strings Competition. She is a graduate of the Kaufman Music Center’s Special Music School, studying with Lynelle Smith, and is currently undertaking a psychology major at Columbia University while studying violin with Masao Kawasaki at the Juilliard School.
Japanese violinist Risa Hokamura is currently pursuing her masters degree at the Manhattan School of Music with a full scholarship, studying with Koichiro Harada and Lucie Robert. Among her accolades are first prize at the 2018 Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions and the silver medal at the 2018 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. She performs on the 1715 ‘Joachim’ Stradivari, on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.
Fifteen-year-old US violinist Ava Pakiam is currently based in San Francisco and studies with violinist Simon James. She was a Seattle Symphony Young Artist for 2021–2022, a selected recitalist for the Colburn School’s Sounding Point Academy, and performs on an 1874 J.B. Vuillaume violin on loan from Strumenti.
Salon De Virtuosi is a nonprofit organisation that prides itself on discovering and supporting talented young classical musicians. Previous string winners of the career grant include violinists Randall Goosby, Yevgeny Kutik and Philip Quint, cellists Sterling Elliott, Zlatomir Fung, and Alban Gerhardt, and the Aizuri and Ulysses quartets.
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