Sofía Chiarandini is a musician based out of the Boston area. She has been playing violin since age five, and at age fourteen decided to dive into the world of bluegrass. Sofía studied with Grammy award winning fiddle and dobro player and notable author Stacy Phillips, who was her mentor and main source of inspiration in the non-classical world. She has been playing double bass since she was nine, and throughout childhood studied with Domenick Fiore, who inspired Sofía to diversify and study jazz as well.
Sofía started playing music using the Suzuki method, and quickly fell in love with classical music. At thirteen, she was awarded 2nd place in the Danbury Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition for her performance of Ravel’s “Tzigane.” She later joined the Danbury Symphony Orchestra as a first violinist for the 2014-2015 season, simultaneously playing for the Community Orchestra, in which she played double bass for six years. She has participated in masterclasses with renowned artists including Pamela Frank, PUBLIquartet, Jaime Laredo, and Sirena Huang. After moving away from classical study in highschool, she branched out to perform in bluegrass, jazz, and folk genres, playing the main stages of major bluegrass and music festivals in the northeast with various ensembles.
At age seventeen, Sofía was accepted to the Berklee College of Music on scholarship, and was honored to receive the Fletcher Bright award in her freshman year. During her time at Berklee, she studied and performed as part of the American Roots Music Program, as well as had the opportunity to study with musical heavy-weights such as Howard Levy, Noam Pikelny, Stuart Duncan, Bruce Molsky, Tony Trischka, Greg Liszt, and Matt Glaser among others. In her sophomore year Sofía co-founded bluegrass band The Ruta Beggars which has gone on to win the 2019 Thomas Point Beach band competition, open for major artists such as Lyle Lovett and Ricky Skaggs, and perform a commissioned Bluegrass Concerto at Freshgrass Festival which featured Sofía as soloist.
As she finished up her bachelor’s of music, Sofía was selected as one of the sixteen participants for the Acoustic Music Seminar at the Savannah Music Festival in 2020 and the following year was the recipient of the Freshgrass Fiddle Award. She has continued frequenting festival stages, currently performing in Boston-based modern stringband groups: Jacob’s Ladder, a group blending contemporary Jewish music with traditional American roots music; and Acoustic Nomads, a group combining North and South American folk and jazz elements to create a vibrant, modern sound.
In addition to her active performing life in these bands, Sofía frequently performs and does session work for other musicians, and enjoys sharing her joy of music by teaching workshops and lessons online and at her home in Cambridge, MA. She has registered training in the Suzuki method for violin, and loves passing on musical traditions of fiddling to her students.