Sonya Moomaw is a rising freshman at The School for Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA). She was inspired to play cello at a young age. At three years old, she started her formal cello training with Dr. Sarah Kim, who she has been studying with for the last ten years. 

Throughout her musical journey, Sonya has won several competitions including the Pacific Musical Society and Foundation in 2024, the Music Teachers National Association Junior Strings Competition in 2023, and the Cleveland Cello Society Scholarship Competition’s Junior Division in 2022. In January of 2024, she was featured on NPR’s From the Top.  She recently placed third in the 27th Annual National Sphinx Competition in the Junior Division. In 2023, she was awarded the Norman E. Johns Chair Award from the Multicultural Awareness Council of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.  

At age eight, Sonya made her orchestral debut with the University of Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Since then, she has had the honor of performing concertos with the Seven Hills Symphony Orchestra, the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, the New Albany Symphony and the Blue Ash/Montgomery Symphony Orchestra. She is currently a member of the SCPA Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Brian Siekmann and most recently completed a season with the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra under the direction of Felipe Morales-Torres.

In addition to classical music, she also loves playing and listening to jazz and bluegrass. She began studying jazz in 2020 and continues to learn under the guidance of Joe Policastro and Erwin Stuckey. She enjoys playing in the jazz jams at The Lounge in Cincinnati and with the jazz ensembles at SCPA. When she was six years old, she started playing at a local bluegrass jam. She has since been invited to play with the Missy Werner Band at the Cincinnati Appalachian Festival, the Taste of Cincinnati, Flight 88, and at local bars and breweries like Mad Tree, The Comet, High Grain and Molly Malone’s.