Young Musicians Strings Masterclass 2026

An advocate for multifaceted musical diversity in the 21st century and a founding member of the GRAMMY award winning Catalyst Quartet, Cuban-American cellist Karlos Rodriguez is an avid soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, clinician, recording artist, writer, and administrator. Rodriguez made his orchestral debut with the New World Symphony at the age of 13 to critical acclaim.
Laureate of competitions and prizes including Florida’s State Cello Prize, Sphinx Competition, Irene Muir Performance Prize, and the Bergamo Classic Music Award (Switzerland) Rodriguez has appeared at many of the United States’ major musical venues, including Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The New World Center, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, and Radio City Music Hall, to name a few. Karlos has also appeared as soloist with the Filharmonica de Bogotá, Cincinnati Symphony, New Haven Symphony, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Sphinx Virtuosi, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Rodriguez has had the honor of working with distinguished artists and members the Beaux Arts Trio, American, Cavani, Cleveland, Emerson, Guarneri, Juilliard, Miami, Orion, Tokyo, Takács, and Vermeer String Quartets; Janos Starker, Lynn Harrell, Zuill Bailey, Pieter Wispelway, Cécile McLorin Salvant, J’Nai Bridges, Julia Bullock, Rachel Barton-pine, Awadagin Pratt, Joshua Bell, Anthony McGill, Paul Neubauer, and Steven Isserlis. His teachers have included Richard Aaron, Peter Wiley, and David Soyer.
New music is central to Karlos’ work as a performer and has commissioned, premiered, and received grants engaging many of the most important composers of our time. A great interest in dance has led to collaborations with the Thomas/Ortiz Dance Company, Freefall, Mark Morris Dance Group, Vail International Dance Festival, Herman Cornejo, and Chita Rivera. Rodriguez has been a guest artist and artist in residence at the Encore music institute, Chamber Music Northwest, Music in the Vineyards, Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Sarasota, Strings, Sitka, Aspen, Ascent, Grand Canyon, Great Lakes, Kneisel Hall, Lake Champlain music festivals; and Napa’s Festival Del Sole. As an educator, he has served as Director of Artistic Affairs for the Sphinx Performance Academy at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Curtis Institute of Music, Juilliard School, and has given master classes domestically and abroad.
Rodriguez has worked on various commercials, films, collaborated with pop artists such as Shakira, John Legend, Pink Martini, contributed to numerous Broadway musicals, and is a member of the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra.
Karlos is assistant professor of cello and chamber music at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, a board member of the Aronson Cello Festival and former principal cellist of the Florida Grand Opera Orchestra in Miami. Rodriguez is also the editor of Living and Sustaining a Creative Life-Music, published by Intellect Books UK.
Rodriguez performs on the ‘ex-Gérard Hekking’ Gustave Bernardel cello made in Paris, 1897 decorated ‘Premier Prix Décerné Par Le Conservatoire National de Musique’ and a ‘Col de Cygne’ Dominique Pecatte bow c. 1840. He is a Pirastro artist and endorses their Perpetual line of strings.

Jacquelyn Schwandt enjoys a varied career as a teacher, chamber musician, orchestral musician and recitalist. She currently serves as Professor of Viola and Associate Director of the Kitt School of Music at Northern Arizona University. She is principal viola with the Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra and has taught at music camps and master classes both domestically and abroad, including Suzuki String institutes and camps in Arizona and South Dakota.

She has been a featured soloist with several orchestras including the Flagstaff Symphony, the Newport Symphony in Oregon, the Musica Sacra Chamber Orchestra in Denver, Colorado, where the Denver Post praised her “smooth, warm tone.” She has served as violist with symphony orchestras across the US and Europe, participated in several orchestral and chamber music festivals and has completed recital tours in Arizona, Nevada, Southern California, Taiwan and Spain.

Dr. Schwandt holds degrees from the University of Oregon (DMA), Wichita State University (MM), and Southern Methodist University (BM).