Winner of the 2025 Aspen Music Festival and School’s Violin Concerto Competition, Ana Isabella España is a 19-year-old violinist from New York City, acclaimed for her passionate musicality, technical brilliance, and remarkable versatility across solo, chamber, and orchestral repertoire. From her first lessons at age four at Opus 118 Harlem School of Music, Isabella’s journey has been marked by a profound love for storytelling through sound.

A graduate of Kaufman Music Center’s Special Music School High School, where she studied with Lynelle Smith, Isabella is currently enrolled in the prestigious Columbia–Juilliard Exchange Program, pursuing a degree in psychology at Columbia University while continuing her violin studies with Professor Masao Kawasaki at The Juilliard School.

Her rapidly growing list of honors includes First Prize at the 2024 Sphinx Competition (Junior Division), Silver Prize at the 2023 MTNA National Senior Strings Competition, and recognition as a 2023 YoungArts award winner. In addition to her 2025 concerto win at Aspen, she is a 2025 Career Grant recipient of Charlotte White’s Salon de Virtuosi. Other honors include the Herman and Mary Neuman Music Award from the National Arts Club, fellowships from the Aspen Music Festival (New Horizons Merit, 2023; Center for Orchestral Leadership, 2025), and Kaufman Music Center’s Award for Outstanding Leadership in Music.

Isabella has been invited to perform in masterclasses with leading artists such as Midori, Miriam Fried, Robert McDuffie, Ani Kavafian, Rainer Honeck, James Buswell, Choong-Jin Chang, and Ilya Kaler. As a soloist, she has appeared with the New World Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra, and Sphinx Symphony Orchestra. In March 2025, she made her Carnegie Hall debut at Stern Auditorium with the New York Youth Symphony Orchestra—a powerful milestone that reflected both her personal journey and the collective influence of the teachers, family members, and communities who nurtured her along the way.

Her performances have reached national audiences through NPR’s From the Top, WQXR, Good Morning America, Telemundo, and The Kelly Clarkson Show, where she performed Florence Price’s Fantasy No. 2 in F-sharp minor with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and spoke about her co-authored book, Who Is Florence Price?

Isabella has collaborated with artists such as Gil Shaham, Adele Anthony, Joshua Bell, Charles Yang, Peter Dugan, Orli Shaham, and Billy Ray Cyrus. In spring 2025, she joined the musical team as a violinist for BASURA, a new Broadway production by Gloria and Emily Estefan, under the musical direction of Tony and Grammy Award–winner Alex Lacamoire.

A passionate leader in the orchestral world, Isabella currently serves as Concertmaster of the Columbia University Orchestra under the baton of Jeffrey Milarsky. She previously served as Concertmaster of the Grammy Award–winning New York Youth Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Kim for two consecutive seasons and on the orchestra’s summer 2024 tour of Greece. She is mentored by Julia Choi, violinist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Isabella has also served as Concertmaster of NYO-USA during its South American tour, performing Scheherazade under Marin Alsop, and led the New York Philharmonic Youth Festival Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel.

With every performance, Ana Isabella España offers more than virtuosity—she brings a thoughtful, heartfelt presence to the stage, using music as a vehicle for connection, creative expression, and reflection. Her artistry is earning her a place among the most promising violinists of her generation, moving audiences across the country and beyond.