Catherine Yara, Principal Second Violin
Catherine Yara Aponte is a Colombian violinist, educator, performer, and arranger based in San Antonio, Texas. Her work brings together performance, teaching, and educational projects shaped by a musical life that began in Colombia and has continued through professional and academic work in the United States. She currently serves as Violin Faculty and at the University of the Incarnate Word and Concertmaster of the UIW Orchestra.
Dr. Yara is originally from Ibagué, Colombia, where music was part of her surroundings from an early age. She later continued her musical studies at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, where performance and education were already closely connected in her work: she performed with the university orchestra while also teaching violin, ear training, and music theory.
She continued that combination of performance and education during her graduate studies at Valdosta State University. While completing her Master of Music Performance, she performed with university ensembles and worked closely with the South Georgia String Project, where she taught students, supported undergraduate teachers, and helped shape lesson planning and pedagogy.
For Catherine, performing and teaching continue to inform one another. Performing keeps her connected to many of the same challenges she asks students to work through—preparation, technique, confidence, interpretation, and managing nerves. Teaching, in turn, requires her to examine why an approach works and find different ways to communicate it. That exchange often sends her back to her own playing with new questions and ideas.
Dr. Yara's connection to Colombian music extends beyond her own background. She has incorporated Colombian and South American repertoire into her performance and educational work, including creating arrangements that make this music more accessible to students, teachers, and string ensembles.Her interest is shaped in part by the remarkable variety of rhythms, styles, and regional identities within Colombian music. That experience has made her especially attentive to the cultural context behind a piece—where it comes from, what it communicates, and the identity, history, rhythm, and stories carried within the music. That curiosity continues to influence the way she approaches repertoire, performance, teaching, and arranging.
Catherine Yara Aponte is a Colombian violinist, educator, performer, and arranger based in San Antonio, Texas. Her work brings together performance, teaching, and educational projects shaped by a musical life that began in Colombia and has continued through professional and academic work in the United States. She currently serves as Violin Faculty and at the University of the Incarnate Word and Concertmaster of the UIW Orchestra.
Dr. Yara is originally from Ibagué, Colombia, where music was part of her surroundings from an early age. She later continued her musical studies at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, where performance and education were already closely connected in her work: she performed with the university orchestra while also teaching violin, ear training, and music theory.
She continued that combination of performance and education during her graduate studies at Valdosta State University. While completing her Master of Music Performance, she performed with university ensembles and worked closely with the South Georgia String Project, where she taught students, supported undergraduate teachers, and helped shape lesson planning and pedagogy.
For Catherine, performing and teaching continue to inform one another. Performing keeps her connected to many of the same challenges she asks students to work through—preparation, technique, confidence, interpretation, and managing nerves. Teaching, in turn, requires her to examine why an approach works and find different ways to communicate it. That exchange often sends her back to her own playing with new questions and ideas.
Dr. Yara's connection to Colombian music extends beyond her own background. She has incorporated Colombian and South American repertoire into her performance and educational work, including creating arrangements that make this music more accessible to students, teachers, and string ensembles.Her interest is shaped in part by the remarkable variety of rhythms, styles, and regional identities within Colombian music. That experience has made her especially attentive to the cultural context behind a piece—where it comes from, what it communicates, and the identity, history, rhythm, and stories carried within the music. That curiosity continues to influence the way she approaches repertoire, performance, teaching, and arranging.
