Violinist Gabriela Lara Becomes Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s First Latina Musician

In last Sunday’s (1/26) Chicago Sun-Times, Kyle MacMillan writes, “When Gabriela Lara joins the first violin section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra this week, she will become the orchestra’s first Latina and third Hispanic member in the current roster—another milestone in its efforts toward greater diversity and inclusion…. She was the inaugural CSO fellow and the first to go on to become a member of the orchestra. The fellowship program was founded in 2022-2023 to promote participation of aspiring musicians from underrepresented backgrounds both in the orchestra and the field at large…. Lara, 24, comes to the CSO after also serving as rotating concertmaster in the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the CSO’s pre-professional training orchestra, in 2022-24, and, most recently, serving as a member of the Milwaukee Symphony … Orchestra officials emphasized that she had to compete for her first-violin position like anyone else, which meant taking part in blind auditions … A native of Barquisimeto, Venezuela, Lara began her violin studies at age 6 … While the proportion of Asian and Asian Americans in American orchestras is higher than in the U.S. population overall, just 2.4% of musicians were Black and 4.8% were Hispanic as of 2022-23, according to the League of American Orchestras. Trumpeter Tage Larsen, the orchestra’s only African American member … supports the continuation of blind auditions like the one in which Lara was chosen, because there were no shortcuts.”