The Bethany Guest Artist Series welcomes 15-year-old Sonoko Miriam Welde to the campus for this eagerly anticipated recital. She will be assisted on piano by Bethel Balge.

Sonoko Miriam Shimano Welde, violin.

Sonoko Miriam (b.1996) is from Bergen, Norway. She first started to play the violin at the age of five, with teacher Crista Bohlmann at Mankato Suzuki School of Music (while her father was a student at Bethany Lutheran Seminary). Currently she is a student at Norway's leading talent school, the Barratt Due Institute of Music, where her professors are Stephan Barratt-Due, Alf R. Kraggerud and Henning Kraggerud. She has also benefited much from international master classes with musicians such as Almita Vamos, Mauricio Fuks, Dora Schwarzberg, Pamela Frank, Ida Haendel, Sarah Chang and Koichiro Harada. Sonoko Miriam has played numerous concerts in various countries, including venues like London's Wigmore Hall, Tokyo Opera City Hall, Osaka Izumi Hall, and Grieg Hall in Bergen. She has been a soloist with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Collegium Musicum Orchestra, Asker Symphony Orchestra, Ung Symfoni, Estonian Chamber Orchestra, among others. In 2009 she received the Bergen Municipality Talent Award. She has won First Prizes at the Norwegian Music Championship for Youth, as well as prizes at the International Kocian Violin Competition (Czech Republic) and Young Musician (Estonia), and been a semi-finalist in the Menuhin Competition (2008 and 2010). She plays on a violin made by P. Robin (2007), on loan from Dextra Musica.

Tickets will be available at the door of the chapel beginning at 6 p.m. the evening of the performance. Ticket prices are $8 for adults and $5 for children and students (through college) and seniors (55+).