Appointed Concertmaster of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005 at the age of twenty-four, Juliana Athayde became the youngest person to hold the position since the orchestra’s inception in 1922. She has appeared as Guest Concertmaster for the Houston and Kansas City Symphonies as well as the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Ontario. A Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School for six years, Athayde was awarded the prestigious Dorothy DeLay Fellowship in 2005 and was subsequently invited to return in 2010 to deliver the festival’s convocation speech.

Athayde’s numerous solo appearances with the RPO have covered a wide range of composers from Mozart and Brahms to Prokofiev and Piazzolla as well as the 2010 premiere of Allen Shawn’s Violin Concerto, commissioned by the RPO and specifically written for her. Athayde has collaborated with many great artists, including Michael Tilson Thomas, Joseph Silverstein, Jon Nakamatsu, William Preucil, Jon Kimura Parker, Anton Nel, Orion Weiss, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Together with her husband, RPO Principal Oboist Erik Behr, Athayde is Artistic Director of the Society for Chamber Music in Rochester.

A passionate educator, Athayde is an Associate Professor of Violin at the Eastman School of Music, and has served as a Visiting Teacher at the Cleveland Institute of Music and a Visiting Professor at Cornell University.