A violinist who once claimed top honors at the International Tchaikovsky Competition will share a Coral Gables stage next week with a 12-year-old prodigy who just won her own major concerto competition, as the two team up for a performance of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons at Sanctuary of the Arts on October 8.
The concert pairs Eric Silberger, who won the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition and the Michael Hill International Violin Competition, with Amanda Kobayashi Nunez, a South Florida violin prodigy who serves as concertmaster of the Florida Youth Orchestra's principal orchestra, according to Miami New Times. Silberger holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Columbia University and a Master of Music from The Juilliard School, where he studied under pedagogues including Itzhak Perlman and Glenn Dicterow, per the Heifetz Institute. For the Coral Gables performance, he'll play a rare 1757 J.B. Guadagnini violin, on loan from the Sau-Wing Lam collection through the Si-Yo Music Society Foundation, according to tonebase.
A Concertmaster Still in Middle School
Nunez, for her part, recently won the 2026 New World Symphony Side-by-Side Concerto Competition and was invited by Time & Harmony founder Vladimir Perez Popov to perform in the October concert. The Side-by-Side program pairs advanced 7th- through 12th-grade instrumentalists from across South Florida with New World Symphony Fellows for one-on-one coaching and an annual showcase, according to the Coral Reef Orchestra. She played Bach during a 2023 competition, per the New Times report, and in April she performed at the Side-by-Side Concert in Miami on a 1996 instrument crafted by luthier Giancarlo Arcieri, whose instruments are produced in Midtown Manhattan and used by New World Symphony fellows, according to Giancarlo Arcieri Violins.
The organization where Nunez trains, the Florida Youth Orchestra, was established in 1988 and now provides music education to more than 400 youth annually across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, having served over 20,000 South Florida children since its founding, per the Florida Youth Orchestra. Silberger will use the performance to explain The Four Seasons' historical and contemporary context and how the work set the standard for later concertos, according to the New Times account.
Vivaldi's Storm Clouds and Birdsong, Two Centuries Old
Vivaldi composed The Four Seasons between 1718 and 1723 and published it in Amsterdam in 1725 as part of his Opus 8 collection, Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, which comprised twelve concertos in total, according to Wikipedia. The work stands as one of the earliest examples of programmatic classical music: Vivaldi printed four descriptive Italian sonnets directly into the 1725 score, with passages explicitly illustrating natural phenomena such as bird calls, summer storms, and winter winds, per the Fort Collins Symphony.
Time & Harmony founder Perez Popov told the New Times that musical education and performance can model a good society, and that a new perspective can change how people experience classical music. Perez Popov, who plays double bass in the ensemble, has built Time & Harmony's mission around using music as a tool to improve lives through social connection and community development, creating sustainable orchestral programs for children, per the same report. The October 8 concert marks Time & Harmony's third show at Sanctuary of the Arts and opens the organization's 2026-2027 season, which will move from baroque to classical to romantic and twentieth-century music, including works by living composers and composers from Miami, according to the New Times.
A Church Turned Concert Hall
The concert's backdrop carries its own history. Sanctuary of the Arts was co-founded in 2019 by Coral Gables trial attorney Lewis “Mike” Eidson and Dr. Margaret Eidson, who secured a 100-year lease on the historic First Church of Christ, Scientist property, according to Coral Gables Magazine. The main 314-seat sanctuary on Andalusia Avenue was originally designed in the 1930s by Phineas Paist, the supervising architect for Coral Gables founder George Merrick who also designed City Hall and the Venetian Pool, per Coral Gables Magazine's reporting. The building was completed in the early 1940s before undergoing adaptive reuse as a multidisciplinary arts venue starting in 2019.
Since opening its doors in April 2022, the venue hosts more than 75 performances each year and has presented major ensembles including the Cleveland Orchestra Chamber Ensemble, according to Hola Latinos Magazine. The concert ensemble joining Silberger and Nunez will include Angela Ramirez, Dorthy Marks, Miguel Misa, Sadie Carol, Juvenal Correa-Salas on harpsichord, and Perez Popov on double bass, per the New Times.
Tickets and Details
The performance begins at 7:30 p.m. on October 8 at Sanctuary of the Arts, 410 Andalusia Ave. in Coral Gables. Tickets range from $28 to $53, and the venue can be reached at 305-975-8489, according to the New Times report.
