attagirl, CAROLINE!
She was a radiant 16 and on the threshold of a starbound career as a solo violinist when the music world first took notice. Already, she has graced the concert stage playing with some of America’s most prestigious orchestras (e.g., the Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Cleveland Pops, Buffalo Philharmonic, Aspen Concert Orchestra). And her debut CD was released by a major label, receiving a few months later a 2010 GRAMMY nomination for Caroline as BEST INSTRUMENTAL SOLOIST (without orchestra). Rising from the ranks of the youngest Gen Y-ers (i.e., those born in the early to mid 1990s), she’s certainly one of the best signs yet that classical music is very much alive and well, an ideal role model for the Gen Z-ers after her.Consider the first milestones of her blooming career and there can be little doubt in your mind that hers will be a life in the limelight:
- at age 3, a beginning fiddler (under the tutelage of Julia Kurtyka)1
- at 13, first prize winner of the Aspen Music Festival’s Concerto Competition and-joining the ranks of star violinists Joshua Bell, Gil Shaham, Maxim Vengerov, Midori, Sarah Chang, Hilary Hahn, and Leila Josefiewicz-a Stradivari Society of Chicago recipient of a venerable 1617 Amati
- at 15, signatory to a record deal with the major label Telarc which released her debut CD on August 25, 2024
- appearances on the following popular TV programs: NBC’s “Today Show” and “The Martha Stewart Show”
- from age 13 onward, a regular performer in National Public Radio’s “From the Top,” the most popular classical music radio program in the US that showcases the country’s most talented young musicians, performing in 2007 as an invited guest in the program’s televised version, the PBS TV series “From the Top: Live from Carnegie Hall,” both hosted by acclaimed pianist and FanFaire-featured artist CHRISTOPHER O’RILEY with whom Caroline frequently appears in concert, including the recital program on her debut CD, FanFaire’s SUMMER 2009 CD GIVEAWAY. The delightful music clip you heard on opening this page is taken from Track 13 of her self-titled debut CD.
- in December 2009, was named Musical America’s New Artist of the Month
1Caroline has since studied with Paul Kantor and Joel Smirnoff at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In the fall of 2011, she begins studies with Donald Weilerstein at the News England Conservatory of Music in Boston. She has also attended the Aspen Music Festival and School, the Starling-Delay Symposium, the Ceilidh Trail School of Celtic Music, and the Interlochen Center for the Arts.
- in summer 2011 she participated in the prestigious Marlborough Music Festival in Vermont.
Watch a videos of young Caroline talking about her budding career:
Caroline’s versatility, precociously confident showmanship, sense of humor and vivacious personality have also been on display in her trio performance with banjo player Bela Fleck of a piece by Fleck, and in her Caroline Goulding’s Musical Living where she “hosts” a show of her own in which she introduces banjo player Bela Fleck to her fellow young musicians and suggests ways to make his instrument case a more interesting container.
Today at 18, Caroline and her violin playing are as radiant and vibrant as ever. And a glance at her busy performance calendar shows she’s booked well into 2012! Could there be a better predictor of a star-track career?
So… there you have it, a portrait of the artist as a young woman who, while still in her teens, is well on her way to what could prove to be an exciting, stellar international career.
Attagirl, CAROLINE!
- © Gloria Cajipe / FanFaire
