Joana Genova
Violinist Joana Genova is active as a chamber musician, teacher, orchestral player and a soloist. She is Co-Artistic Director of Taconic Music in Manchester, VT and principal second violin of the Berkshire Symphony Orchestra.
Biography
Genova is a Bulgarian-born violinist who has built a diverse career as a chamber and orchestral musician, soloist, recitalist, and teacher. Together with her husband, violist and conductor Ariel Rudiakov, she is Co-Artistic Director of Taconic Music in Manchester, Vermont. A frequent performer at festivals and concert series with The Indianapolis Quartet, Taconic String Quartet and Vermont Symphony’s Jukebox Quartet, Genova can also be found onstage as a guest violinist throughout the United States and Europe, collaborating with prominent musicians and ensembles.
Genova 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: String Quartets 1-3; Maxine Linehan: This Time of Year; Incandescence: Chamber Music by David Gunn; and Stephen Dankner: Four Sonatas for Violin and Piano.
As a soloist, Genova has been featured with the Metropolitan, Rockaway, Danbury, and Berkshire symphonies, Adelphi Chamber Orchestra, Harlem Chamber Players, Manchester Festival Orchestra, Yonkers Philharmonic, and the University of Indianapolis Orchestra. She is principal second violin 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 and was member of Amsterdam Sinfonietta, 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, Genova 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. Genova performs on a Johannes Cuypers violin made in The Hague in 1786.
Previously, Genova served as Adjunct Professor and Coordinator of Chamber Music at Montclair State University’s John J. Cali School of Music, and Assistant Professor of Violin and Director of String Activities at the University of Indianapolis. She has been an Artist Associate at Williams College since 2007 and an instructor at Bennington since Fall 2022.