This preteen cellist from Central Mass. just made history at the Sphinx Competition

Boston Globe

07-03-2025

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Though Sofia didn't qualify for the final round, which includes cash prizes ranging from $3,000 for third place to $10,000 for first, her performance earned an honorable mention, and it's possible she could apply again in the future; many semifinalists do.
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However, the bright-eyed preteen with a seemingly insatiable appetite for music has plenty to keep her occupied before application season rolls around again. Next Sunday (March 16), she'll participate in a showcase concert at Rockport's Shalin Liu Performance Center presented by Project STEP, the Boston-based nonprofit that provides instruction and resources to young musicians from historically underrepresented backgrounds in the classical music field.
This is her fifth year as a Project STEP student, and she will be performing the first movement of a cello concerto by Saint-Saëns, as well as a violin-cello duet arrangement of the same composer's 'Danse macabre,' which she had just rehearsed before sitting down for the interview. 'I was working with my colleague,' she said, then shook her head and softly giggled at her own use of the word 'colleague.'
Sofia is the youngest member of a Holden-based family quartet of string players. Her father, the Cuba-born violinist and violin maker Angel Hernandez Dominguez, met her mother, cellist Caroline Reiner-Williams, while studying at the now-shuttered Atlantic Union College in Lancaster. Her older brother Alex Hernandez-Williams, 14, picked up the violin, while Sofia gravitated toward its lower cousin.
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'I actually have this very distinct memory of coming from the living room, Mama was in the kitchen, and I was like' — she gestured as if pulling on an adult's shirt — 'I wanna play the cello!'
She started playing at 4 or 5, she estimated, then turning to her father: 'I don't know if you consider me starting the cello, but I kind of
scratched
the cello a lot…'
'Well, that's how we start,' said Hernandez.
Her first instructor was her mother, but before long, she started taking formal lessons at Worcester's Joy of Music Program with Timothy Teranella, who remains her primary teacher. Because Teranella had taught Reiner-Williams during her own years as a JOMP student, Sofia said, 'we call him the grand-teacher,' she joked. In addition to private lessons
and Project STEP, she plays in youth ensembles through JOMP and Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, as does her brother.
It helps that there is some room for improvisation in the rhythm of their days. Reiner-Williams was home-schooled as a child, and she and Hernandez decided to do the same for their children. 'It's important that we give them the education that we wish for them to have, and the chance to pursue the things they're most interested in,' he said.
Which parent takes charge of teaching at home? Hernandez silently pointed to his daughter and cracked a smile.
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'We have an online curriculum,' Sofia quickly clarified. 'And the home-school co-op, too' — specifically Great Explorers Co-op, based in Marlborough.
But Sofia's curiosity helps her excel as a self-directed learner, Hernandez said. 'She's very disciplined and self-driven, and she makes her own schedule that she's very good at following to the letter,' he said. Anytime she's practicing cello, 'she's very intense. It looks like she's always preparing for a competition.'
Alex loves playing music as well, but doesn't thrive on competition the same way Sofia does, said Hernandez. 'She came to me about two years ago, maybe a little more, and said, 'I know what I want to do when I grow up! I want to be a soloist,'' he said. 'And I was like, well, OK, guess we'd better start now.'
In 2024, Sofia performed Haydn's complete Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Worcester-based community orchestra Seven Hills Symphony. Then, in subsequent months, she performed single movements from the same piece with the Massachusetts Symphony Orchestra and the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra — the last one only days after returning from Sphinx.
Asked whether she'd describe herself as competitive, Sofia mumbled and tried to hide as much of her 4-foot-something frame as possible behind her cello.
Her list of dream pieces to learn in the future includes concertos by Dvořák, Lalo, and Elgar, and she especially enjoys recordings by Jacqueline du Pré and Gautier Capuçon, 'and Yo-Yo Ma, for Bach,' she said.
Sometimes, Hernandez said, he has to warn her to stop practicing for the day. He doesn't want her to strain herself, and also, he said, 'I want her to enjoy herself. Just be a kid.' Read a book, or play on the Nintendo Switch, or go outside, or play with her pet rabbit Blueberry, for example.
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'She's old-fashioned,' he said. 'She reads Dickens — '
'I
don't read Dickens!'
Sofia jumped in. 'I've never read anything by Dickens!'
She's actually reading 'Emma' by Jane Austen.
PROJECT STEP
March 16, 3 p.m. Shalin Liu Performance Center, Rockport. Free; tickets required. 978-546-7391, www.rockportmusic.org
A.Z. Madonna can be reached at