Shirley Givens
and
Harry Wimmer
The Shirley Givens & Harry Wimmer Memorial Fellowship
The Shirley Givens & Harry Wimmer Memorial Fellowship is awarded annually to a talented young artist for their participation in the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico.
In Memoriam
Shirley Givens was the beloved violinist, teacher, and long-time faculty member of the Juilliard School, Peabody Institute, and Mannes School of Music. Her husband, cellist and conductor Harry Wimmer, was her lifelong musical collaborator in addition to his own career as a performer and teacher.
Together, the two musicians had a special affection for Puerto Rico, whose wonderful cultural heritage they experienced during their two visits to the Island.
Invited to present master classes in 1991 to the members of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas as part of the Festival Casals, they also performed in a trio recital with the Chancellor of the Puerto Rico Conservatory, the pianist Samuel Pérez.
Returning two years later, they were honored to play a chamber music concert at Sala Casals, Don Pablo’s last home in the hills outside San Juan. Also joining them was Givens’ long-time Puerto Rican student Christian Colberg, who has since become Principal Violist of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
The family of Shirley Givens and Harry Wimmer is honored to continue this Fellowship, originally established in Shirley Givens’ name, to support classical music education in Puerto Rico.
2025 Shirley Givens and Harry Wimmer Memorial Fellow
Sonja Kraus, cello
Germany
Dr. Sonja Kraus, a native of Germany, is an internationally acclaimed cellist, teacher, and music scholar, whose concertizing and teaching career has taken her through Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the United States. Currently, Kraus holds the position of Assistant Professor of Cello/Bass at the University of South Dakota and is the cellist in the renowned Rawlins Piano Trio. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of South Dakota, Kraus was the Cello Professor at the Universidad de Especialidades Espíritu Santo as well as the principal cellist of the Orquesta Filarmónica Municipal de Guayaqul in Ecuador. Kraus holds her bachelor’s in Cello Performance and Pedagogy from the State University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart (Germany) as well as a master’s and doctoral degree from the Jacobs School of Music – Indiana University Bloomington where she studied with Prof. Emilio Colón, the 2017 Artist of the year by the New York Classical Music Society. Kraus is a sought-out performer, clinician, and instructor of masterclasses throughout the US, Latin America, and Germany with invitations to the Colegio Universitario San Gerónimo de La Habana (Cuba), Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico, Jacobs School of Music – Indiana University (IN), Chapman University (CA), and University of Lincoln (NE). Kraus participated in several music festivals around the world including Habana Clásica, the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico, and the Fresno Summer Orchestra Academy. As a researcher, Kraus focuses on broadening the cello repertoire by identifying manuscripts and creating editions of unpublished cello works from the classical era, currently focusing on three Cello Concertos by Franz Anton Hoffmeister.
