Rafailia Kapsokavadi

Biography

Rafailia Kapsokavadi was born in 1998 in Thessaloniki, Greece. She started learning to play the violin at the age of 6, under the tutelage of the concertmaster of Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra and graduate from the Royal Academy of Music in London, Omiros Yiavroumis. She participated in numerous masterclasses in Europe and Russia, where she was improving her skills and has attended summer workshops. Rafailia received the Greek National Diploma-Certificate in violin performance in Thessaloniki at the age of 16 with first prize. In August 2016, she moved to Charlotte, North Carolina and has been attending the Hayes School of Music for a degree in violin performance, studying under Professor Nancy Bargerstock while she has studied for a little while studying with the distinguished violinist Janet Sung in DePaul School of Music in Chicago. In 2016 she was awarded the Hayes Young Artist, which is a four-year scholarship. Her past public appearances include performances with the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra and MOUSA in Greece, as well as the Aristotle Symphony Orchestra. She has also performed side-by-side with the North Carolina Symphony in December 2018 as principal second violin.
In the summer of 2017, she attended the violin festival Mountaintop Mastercourse in New York and studied with David Russell. She also participated in masterclasses with Steven and Larissa Elisha, and attended a series of masterclasses with Rachel Burton Pine in Atlanta. Since October 2017, Rafailia has been performing with the Johnson City Symphony Orchestra in Tennessee as a first violinist as well as first violinist with the Western Piedmont Symphony Orchestra in Hickory. She has been an active member of the American String Teachers Association since 2016 and she has been attending conferences in various states. Rafailia has also attended the famous festival in Northern Europe, Alion Baltic International Music Festival in Estonia the summer of 2018 and studied with scholarship and excellence under the tutelage of the internationally acclaimed violinists Albert Markov, Sergei Stadler, Stanislav Pronin, Anastasia Kozlova, Ivry Gitlis and Alissa Margulis and couple more Russian-American teachers. She will be studying in Classical Bridge this summer with great teachers and Eastern Music Festival with scholarship.
She has studied with Daniel Phillips at the prestigious Juilliard School and Mannes School of Music in New York City for her master's degree in solo violin performance on a merit scholarship. Rafailia has Performed in David Geffen Hall in Lincoln Center with the famous New York Arabic Orchestra as part of the GlobalFest project. She is also performing with the New England Symphonic Ensemble in Carnegie Hall under the acclaimed conductor Peter Tiboris from the 2023 season.