About Catherine
Catherine Yara Aponte
Colombian Violinist, Educator & Performer
Catherine Yara Aponte is a Colombian violinist, educator, performer, and arranger based in San Antonio, Texas. Her work brings together performance, teaching, and educational projects shaped by a musical life that began in Colombia and has continued through professional and academic work in the United States.
Roots in Colombia
Catherine is originally from Ibagué, Colombia, where music was part of her surroundings from an early age. She later continued her musical studies at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, where performance and education were already closely connected in her work: she performed with the university orchestra while also teaching violin, ear training, and music theory.
Performance & Education
Catherine continued that combination of performance and education during her graduate studies at Valdosta State University. While completing her Master of Music Performance, she performed with university ensembles and worked closely with the South Georgia String Project, where she taught students, supported undergraduate teachers, and helped shape lesson planning and pedagogy.
For Catherine, performing and teaching continue to inform one another. Performing keeps her connected to many of the same challenges she asks students to work through—preparation, technique, confidence, interpretation, and managing nerves. Teaching, in turn, requires her to examine why an approach works and find different ways to communicate it. That exchange often sends her back to her own playing with new questions and ideas.
Colombian Music in Her Work
Catherine’s connection to Colombian music extends beyond her own background. She has incorporated Colombian and South American repertoire into her performance and educational work, including creating arrangements that make this music more accessible to students, teachers, and string ensembles.
Her interest is shaped in part by the remarkable variety of rhythms, styles, and regional identities within Colombian music. That experience has made her especially attentive to the cultural context behind a piece—where it comes from, what it communicates, and the identity, history, rhythm, and stories carried within the music. That curiosity continues to influence the way she approaches repertoire, performance, teaching, and arranging.
On Music and Teaching
At the center of Catherine’s teaching is the goal of helping students become independent musicians. Technique, intonation, rhythm, and accuracy matter, but so does learning how to listen critically, identify a problem, experiment with solutions, and practice with purpose. She wants students to develop the confidence to express something through the instrument rather than becoming preoccupied with avoiding mistakes.
For Catherine, a successful lesson does not necessarily end with everything perfected. Sometimes the more important result is that a student understands something differently and leaves with the tools to continue working on it independently.
She brings a similar balance of warmth and focus to rehearsals and collaborations. Catherine values an environment where people can ask questions, try ideas, make mistakes, laugh, and be themselves while still taking the work seriously. Preparation and high standards matter to her, but she does not see them as being at odds with kindness, enjoyment, or collaboration.
Whether working with a student or another musician, Catherine cares about both the quality of the work and the person doing it. With students, that means paying attention to individual goals and finding approaches that work for the person in front of her. With colleagues, it means exchanging ideas, contributing thoughtfully, and being someone others can rely on.
“I can be demanding because I believe people are capable of more, but I don’t think that has to come at the expense of kindness or enjoyment.” — Catherine
Curriculum Vitae
For more about Catherine’s professional background and experience, view her CV.