US-born cellist Sophia Bacelar (1996) started playing her instrument at the age of three. From 2006 to 2012, she studied at Juilliard School in the class of Clara Kim (cello) and Naoko Tanaka, Renée Jolles, Lara Lev as well as Constance Moore (chamber music). Afterwards, she enrolled at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris where she has been studying cello with Philippe Muller and chamber music with Claire Désert, Ami Flammer, Michel Strauss and others.  
Sophia has gathered substantial performance experience at festivals such as the MusicAlp Summer Festival, Festival Domaine Forget, Aurora Chamber Music Festival and at concert venues like Weill Recital Hall, Paul Recital Hall, Morse Hall and Peter Jay Sharp Theater, New York City; Gyeonggi Arts Center, South Korea; La Salle François-Bernier, Canada and many more. She enjoys performing as a soloist as well as in chamber music and orchestral formations. Next to her main teachers, Sophia has attended master classes with Jens Peter Maintz and Fabio Bidini.

The young musician has won top prizes in several competitions, including first prizes at the New York Young Musicians Competition and American String Teacher Association/NJ Solo Competition (2007); first prize at the Juilliard School of Music Competition (2008); first prize at the 27th Annual Goldblatt Music Scholarship Competition (2009); gold prize in the 2010 Young Artists Concerto Competition of Bravura Philhamonic Orchestra, NJ. Invited by the International Tchaikovsky Committee, Sophia participated in the 6th International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in Suwon, South Korea, in 2009. Most recently, she won second prize at the Juilliard School of Music Competition and emerged as semi-finalist in the Johansen International Competition, Washington D.C., and Tchaikovsky International Competition for Young Musicians, Montreux, Switzerland (2012).