Karolina Errera

Violist Karolina Errera won several major international competitions during the 2010s decade. She is an enthusiastic chamber music player who has collaborated with world-class artists. Errera was born in Moscow in 1993. Her family background includes elements from Russia and the Dominican Republic. Errera's household was not musical, but she was exposed to music early and took up the viola at age four. She studied at the Central Music School in Moscow with Mariya Sitkovskaya. With support from the Schwiete Stiftung Foundation in Mannheim, Errera moved to Germany to continue her studies. She earned a bachelor's degree at the Berlin University of the Arts, where her principal teacher was Wilfried Strehle. Errera went on to Berlin's Musikhochschule Hanns Eisler, studying with violist Tabea Zimmermann, and she took further classics at the Kronberg Academy near Frankfurt. By the mid-2010s, Errera was racking up important competition prizes, including wins at the 2013 Jan Rakowski Viola Competition in Poznán, Poland, and the 2018 Yuri Bashmet International Viola Competition in Moscow in 2018. In 2022, Errera released her debut album, Songs of Rain, on the Genuin label, accompanied by Lilit Grigoryan; the album earned several nominations at Germany's 2023 Opus Klassik awards. Errera has already appeared at major venues such as Wigmore Hall in London, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, and, with pianist Yannick Rafalimanana, the Konzerthaus in Berlin. She performed as a soloist with the Vogtland Philharmonie in Greiz, Germany, in Paul Hindemith's viola concerto Der Schwanendreher. Errera's list of chamber music collaborators includes such prestigious names as pianist András Schiff and violinists Gidon Kremer and Vilde Frang. She has been quite visible at major European summer events, including the Verbier Festival and the Seiji Ozawa Academy Festival in Switzerland, the Heidelberger Frühling in Germany, and Krzyżowa-Music in Poland. Errera returned to the recording studio in late 2022 as a chamber musician; the album Mélodies Infinies, featuring piano quartets by Fauré and George Enescu, was released on the Naxos label in 2024.
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