Ariadna Rodríguez Cima - Violin

I am writing this letter to explain and resume my academic and musical accomplishments since entering at Berklee. I am Ariadna Rodriguez, a violin player from Barcelona, Spain. I got a Degree in Classical Music, after that I got a Diploma in Violin Performance and also I did a Specialization Course in my instrument with Mr. Corrado Bolsi. At the same time I got in the Youth Orchestra of my country and performed in Germany, Netherlands, France, and Cuba. I am explaining this because I think that it's important to understand why I came to Berklee.

I became a professional classical player, and the next step was auditioning for professional Orchestras. I got gigs in some of them and I was not satisfied. After all those years of hard practice, I was missing so many things, like being creative, speaking my own voice, improvising on my instrument... After applying, I got a Scholarship from Berklee on the World Scholarship Tour and also a Scholarship from the Fulbright Foundation.

I got here and started my dream, playing jazz, rock, funk, world music and also arranging in a modern way for strings. I think that there is a lot to do on those worlds as a string player and arranger. Violin is not a normal instrument on some of those styles, but I really believe that there is a lot of work to be done, and I am proud to be in one of the only schools on the world where there is a four Year program for "modern" string players.

Since I got here (Spring '07 is my fourth semester), I played in more than 30 recording sessions from MP & E and Film Scoring students. I also collaborated with the CWO and the Berklee String Orchestra. I have been playing student works for Contemporary Techniques in Composition I and II classes, as well as in the Composition Department concerts. Having a strong classical background puts me in a really helpful position for the Berklee Community.   I get three to five calls every week to collaborate with Composers, Arrangers, MP&E students... and I try to play as much as I can.

After a week of starting Berklee, I got a call from Matt Glaser asking me to play on the String section for the Berklee 60 th anniversary Concert at the Wang Center. Since then I collaborated in more than ten concerts at BPC, "The Music of Duke Ellington", "The Score", "CWO concerts", "Berklee String Orchestra concerts", "Women Musician network", "The Music of Stevie Wonder", "Berklee Folk Festival" and so on.   I played eight or ten recitals with my ensembles in 1A and 1W and I also led two of my own recitals as a player and arranger.

I also want to mention that I've been studying Performance Art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts trough Pro-Arts since my first semester, and I am developing a project where I am putting together my music, dance and theater background to create performances including multimedia and video art.

I've been in the Dean's List since my first semester and my cumulative GPA is 3'85. Because of my classical knowledge when I came I got in the last courses for the Core Music classes. I also tranferred some credits from Spain, and that means that provably I only have one semester left at Berklee to graduate (Fall '07).

  To end I have to say that my Fulbright Scholarship was paying for all my expenses including tuition and living expenses. The Fulbright Scholarship for Arts (Music, Film, Fine Arts) is the only one from that Foundation that can't be extended for more than one year.   It ends this May.  

For all those reasons above I believe that I am in a good position to get a raise on the amount I got on the World Scholarship Tour to help me finish my last semester at Berklee and at the same time be here to collaborate as a violin player like I've been doing since I came.

Sincerely,

Ariadna Rodriguez Cima