Pala Garcia

About Pala

Pala Garcia is a critically acclaimed violinist specializing in new music and socially engaged artistry. Garcia centers the personal and social in her creative work and research, exploring the meaning made by performers’ experience and practice and its potential for generative transformation.

Garcia was recently featured in the Washington Post’s “23 for ‘23: Performers and Composers to Watch.” She is the violinist of Longleash, an “expert young trio” (The Strad) whose work in new music has been recognized by The New Yorker, New York Times, and Tempo, and supported by organizations including Chamber Music America, the Alice Ditson Fund of Columbia University, New Music USA, the Amphion Foundation, and many others. With her colleagues in Longleash, she also co-directs the Loretto Project, an annual music creation residency now in its eighth year. Her debut solo album is forthcoming on New Focus Recordings in 2023, with support from the Aaron Copland Fund.

In addition to her involvement in Carnegie Hall’s social impact programs, Garcia is on the faculty of the Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division and has taught at Hunter College and Brooklyn College. She has performed regularly in renowned ensembles such as the International Contemporary Ensemble, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. She is an alumna of The Juilliard School and a doctoral candidate, senior teaching fellow, and recipient of a certificate in Women’s Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center.

My artistic life has been profoundly shaped by the wonderful teachers in my life, and I bring that sense of purpose and responsibility to my own work as an educator. I believe that meaningful violinistic achievement can only grow from a profound degree of physical comfort, personal confidence, and sense of creative purpose at the instrument. I work toward those goals in my instructional approach, drawing on methods from yoga, body awareness, and performance psychology, while maintaining an uncompromising and rigorous dedication to excavating expression and meaning through music. I'm passionate about the problem-solving skills required to develop complex technical facility, and enjoy helping students find solutions and achieve breakthroughs in their playing.