Joana Genova

Bulgarian-born violinist Joana Genova, co-artistic director of Taconic Music, has built a diverse career as a chamber and orchestral musician, soloist, recitalist, and teacher. Jim Lowe of The Rutland Herald wrote “Genova played with an infectious mix of passion and warmth, coupled with the requisite virtuosity”.

Joana performs at festivals and concert series with The Indianapolis Quartet, Vermont Symphony’s Jukebox Quartet, Taconic String Quartet and as a guest musician, appearing at venues throughout United States and in Europe, most recently Italy and Bulgaria.

Currently, Joana serves as Artist Associate at Williams College and Violin Instructor at Bennington College. She was Adjunct Professor and Coordinator of Chamber Music at Montclair State University, and Assistant Professor of Violin and Director of String Activities at the University of Indianapolis.

Her collaborations include The Shanghai Quartet, Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, Horszowski Trio, Andrés Cárdenes, Carmit Zori, Nathaniel Rosen, Nathaniel Parke, Danwen Jiang, Austin Hartman, Renee Jolles, Michael Rudiakov, Tom Landschoot, Sophie Shao, Roberta Cooper, Jon Klibonoff, Ruth Laredo, Gili Melamed-Lev, Davide Cabassi, David Krakauer, Deborah Buck, Duo Jalal, Raman Ramakrishnan, Heather Braun, Willis Delony, Eugene Drucker, Drew Petersen, and Tommy Mesa among others. She has appeared live on GNAT-TV and CAT-TV in Vermont, WISH-TV Indianapolis, WQXR Albany, Vermont Public Radio, and WBAA and WICR in Indiana.  Her recordings include Chamber Music of Vittorio Giannini; Vision: Music of the 20th and 21st Centuries; Four Seasons x2: Piazzolla and Vivaldi; Reflections and Whimsies: Chamber Music for Strings and Voice by Frank Felice; Mark Ortwein: Stretching Boundaries; Robert Paterson’s String Quartets 1-3 with The Indianapolis Quartet; Maxine Linehan’s This Time of Year with Taconic Chamber Players;  Stephen Dankner: Four Sonatas for Violin and Piano with Willis Delony and Incandescence: chamber music by David Gunn performed by Vermont Virtuosi.

As a soloist Joana has been featured with the Metropolitan, Rockaway, Danbury, and Berkshire symphonies, Adelphi Chamber Orchestra, Harlem Chamber Players, Manchester Festival Orchestra, Yonkers Philharmonic, and under the baton of Raymond Leppard with the University of Indianapolis Gala Orchestra. She is principal second violinist of the Berkshire Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as a guest concertmaster of the Carmel Symphony, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic and Viva Bach Festival. Joana has been member of Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Amsterdam Bach Consort, Brooklyn Philharmonic and New Haven Symphony.

A graduate of the National School of Music and Dance “Dobrin Petkov” in Plovdiv, where she made her solo debut at age 12 with the Plovdiv Chamber Orchestra, Joana is a top prizewinner of Bulgaria’s “Svetoslav Obretenov” National Competition. She earned her bachelor’s degree at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and her Master’s in Chamber Music at the Rotterdam Conservatory in The Netherlands. Her teachers include Boyanka Shopova, Alexander Spirov, Peter Brunt, Ilya Grubert, and Samuel Thaviu. Joana performs on a Johannes Cuypers violin made in The Hague in 1786.