Hello my name is Skarli M. Pena Graterol and I am a Venezuelan-born violinist who has been living in the Bay Area since 2011. I received my B.A. in Music Education with an emphasis in Youth Education in 2010 from U.P.E.L. Barquisimeto. My father, a lifelong instructor and conductor in the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra who has played and conducted in a number of countries internationally, put a violin in my hands at the age of five and instructed me in the graceful nature of the instrument. Through diligence, ambition and an unflinching dedication to my craft, I feel that I have amassed the necessary skill set to educate others, namely children, in the finer art of violin playing. In Venezuela, I worked within the international organization El Sistema in Venezuela with an emphasis in children’s musical education for a number of years. Here in the US, I attended the Suzuki Core Training Seminar in Sacramento where the foundation was set in place for me to fully realize my dream of teaching children as a profession here in the United States. I am passionate about music and childhood education and am excited to undertake this endeavor of teaching children and performing in quartets here in the Bay Area. I look forward to giving kids in the Bay Area the same appreciation for the violin-and for classical music-that my father gave me. Fluent in both English and Spanish, I currently live in Cole Valley in San Francisco, where I teach violin lessons in English (or Spanish, if you prefer).