Rochester Violinist Wins Chance to Perform With DSO Musicians

Sixteen-year-old Sofia Pokrzywa has earned a chance to put her remarkable violin talents on display after winning a chance to compete with musicians from the Detroit Symphonic Orchestra.

Sofia, a junior at Rochester Adams High School, won the DSO musicians’ AVANTI Summer MusicFest solo competition and will perform the first movement of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto at a July 26 concert with musicians from the DSO, according to Cornelia Pokrzywa, Sofia’s mother.

Sofia competed July 3 at the Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit with four other finalists: Oboist Spencer Grasi of Brighton, violinist Elsa Koran from Troy, euphonium player Jacob Steinberger of Macomb Township and cellist Alex Thompson from Oxford, according to AVANTI.

“I was so excited to be part of the live final round of the competition,” Sofia said. “All of us have gone from practicing on our own, to creating a video for the first round, and now I feel honored to have the opportunity to share music I love onstage with musicians of the Detroit Symphony.”

The concert will take place on at 7:30 p.m. on July 26 at First United Methodist Church of Birmingham and will also include Copland’s Appalachian Spring and Rossini’s Overture to The Barber of Seville.

For concert tickets, visit www.avantisummermusicfest.org/festival-concerts/ or call (313) 530-5118.