Age: 20
“I love the endless range of tones and colours I can experiment with on the violin, and the beautiful, almost divine melodies that make my heart glow. When I practice, I enter a meditative state in which I can dissociate from the world around me, calm and invigorated.”
Canadian-Chinese violinist Paloma So is quickly emerging as one of the leading young artists of her generation. She studied with Russian pedagogue Zakhar Bron since the age of nine, and graduated in 2023 from the Juilliard School Pre-College Program, under the tutelage of Catherine Cho and Donald Weilerstein. Currently a third-year Economics and Music concentrator at Harvard College, she continues her studies with Donald Weilerstein at the New England Conservatory, where she is awarded a full merit scholarship.
Paloma is particularly passionate about the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. “His writing is mesmerizingly intricate, with mind-blowing structure and lines that are intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally powerful – needless to say, timeless. He can say so much with a single instrument.” She is delighted to have the chance to play his Sonata for Solo Violin nº 1 in G minor during the First Round of the Concours 2026, which will mark her debut in Canada. Since her family moved to Hong Kong before she started playing the violin, she has not yet had the chance to perform in her birth country.
Paloma has won prizes at several international competitions, including Second Prize at the Wieniawski International Violin Competition, and First Prize of the Novosibirsk International Violin Competition, where she was the youngest participant in the competition’s history. She was recently named one of Classic FM’s “30 Under 30 Rising Stars” and has been praised by The Strad for her playing that is “powerful, dramatic, and compelling… awfully good”.
She has performed with renowned orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, the Berlin Symphony, the China Philharmonic, the Shanghai Symphony, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and at esteemed venues including Buckingham Palace, the Berliner Philharmonie, the Mariinsky Theatre, and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. Highlights for the 2025-2026 season include Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the North Czech Philharmonic Teplice, Glazunov’s Violin Concerto with the Oxford Philharmonic, and Prokofiev’s first Violin Concerto with the China Philharmonic and the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra; as well as solo and chamber appearances at the Pärnu and Verbier festivals.
Paloma plays on the 1707 Stradivarius “La Cathédrale”.
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