Sonya Moomaw is a 13-year-old, eighth grader at The School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati, Ohio. Sonya has won several competitions including the Music Teachers National Association Junior Strings Competition in 2023 and the Cleveland Cello Society Scholarship Competition’s Junior Division in 2022. In January of 2024, she was featured on NPR’s “From the Top” with host Peter Dugan and placed third at the 27th Annual National Sphinx Competition in the Junior Division.
At age eight, Sonya made her orchestral debut with the University of Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, where she performed the first movement of the Haydn C Major Cello Concerto. In March of 2023, she performed the Saint-Säens Cello Concerto No. 1, with the Seven Hills Symphony Orchestra. She is excited to perform concertos with both the New Albany Symphony and the Blue Ash/Montgomery Symphony Orchestra in March of 2024. She is currently a member of the SCPA Chamber Orchestra, the SCPA Jazz Ensemble, the Seven Hills Symphony Orchestra, and the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra.
In 2023, she was awarded the Norman E. Johns Chair Award from the Multicultural Awareness Council (MAC) of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra.
She has been studying cello with Dr. Sarah Kim for the last ten years.