Sonya Moomaw is a 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 eleven years.
Throughout her musical journey, Sonya has been very successful in several competitions including placing 2nd in the 28th Annual National Sphinx Competition in the Junior Division in 2025, and 3rd in the 27th Annual National Sphinx Competition in the Junior Division in 2024. In addition, she placed 1st in 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 was awarded the Norman E. Johns Chair Award from the Multicultural Awareness Council of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra in both 2023 and 2024. She most recently participated in the Cincinnati Arts Association’s Overture Awards as a finalist.
At age eight, Sonya made her orchestral debut with the University of Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Since then, she has performed concertos with the Seven Hills Symphony Orchestra, the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, the New Albany Symphony, and the Blue Ash/Montgomery Symphony Orchestra. She was honored to be a soloist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra during the summer of 2024, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in March 2025, and the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra in Spring 2025. She is currently the principal cellist in both the SCPA Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Brian Siekmann and the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra Philharmonic under the direction of Samuel Lee and Daniel Wiley.
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 played in Flight 88, a local concert series, and at local music festivals including the Cincinnati Appalachian Festival, the Taste of Cincinnati, Cabin Fever in Ludlow, KY, Whispering Beard in North Bend, Ohio, and MapHop in Madison, Indiana as well as several of Cincinnati’s local bars and breweries.