Mayra E. Urdaz

Mayra Urdaz, violinist and Suzuki specialist, is Professor of Suzuki Violin and teacher in the pre-school program at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, highest rated music school in the country. She has taught there since 2003. A freelance professional violinist, Urdaz is a certified Suzuki instructor and maintains a private violin studio in which she combines both traditional and Suzuki approaches to teaching.

She began her undergraduate study in violin at Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, New York. During her four years at BC, from 1982 to 1986, she also performed in a series of educational concerts for disadvantaged communities for which she received an award in 1986. She was given a Hispanic Link Award in that same year.

Beginning in 1987, Urdaz played in the first violin section of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra and began participating in the Casals Festival in that country, activities which continued through 1998. In 1999 she served as assistant concertmaster in the Hot Springs Music Festival orchestra in Arkansas.

Urdaz received Suzuki Certification from Ithaca College in New York state in 1990 and graduated magna cum laude from the Puerto Rico Music Conservatory in 1991 with a B.A. in music. She also attended the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado for the third time that summer. From 1991 to 1996, she maintained a private Suzuki violin studio and was first violinist in the Amadeus Trio, a string ensemble that existed from 1989 to 1993.

In 1997 Urdaz began graduate study at Andrews University. During the next five years she also served as an adjunct professor and graduate assistant and, from 1999 to 2002 was concertmaster of the AU symphony orchestra and chamber players. She completed an M.Mus. in 2002. Her students were prize-winners in regional orchestra competitions during her last two years at the university.

Urdaz studied violin with Carla Trynchuk while at AU. Other principal teachers have included Dorothy Delay, Masao Kawasaki, Samuel Magad, Saul Ovcharov, Jose Figueroa, and Henry Hutchinson. She has participated in master classes under Ithzak Perlman, Ilia Kaler, Janet Packard, and Laurence Goland. She has given numerous recitals and been a soloist with several orchestras in Puerto Rico and the United States.

In 2007 she was a supporting performer on a two-CD set recorded by Gilberto Santa Rosa, a Puerto Rican singer on the Sony BMG label.

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Sources: Resume, 2003; Biography at the Conservatory of Music in Puerto Rico.