Vietnamese-American instrumentalist Kiarra Saito-Beckman is an emerging violinist and violist based in Cleveland, Ohio. She enjoys a multi-faceted career as a soloist and chamber musician and is also a passionate educator. Her performances have taken her across North America, Europe, and Asia.

A frequent participant in international competitions, Kiarra was a prize winner of the Thomas & Evon Cooper International Violin Competition, a semifinalist of the Schoenfield International String Competition, Ronald Sachs International Music Competition, and Stulberg International String Competition, and a quarterfinalist of the Sendai International Music Competition. She is grateful to have been the recipient of a multitude of generous scholarships throughout her career, including from the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation, Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, Tuesday Musical Association, Benton Community and Sunriver Music Festival.

Kiarra has attended numerous festivals and masterclasses as a soloist and chamber musician, including the IMS Prussia Cove masterclasses and Open Chamber Music sessions, Danish String Quartet Academy, Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Encore Chamber Music Institute, Heifetz International Music Institute, Académie de Musique Riviera, Meadowmount School of Music, National Arts Centre Young Arttist Program. As an orchestral player, she participated in the New York String Orchestra Seminar for their 50th anniversary, which culminated in performances in Carnegie Hall.

Notable solo appearances have include performances with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Coeur d’Alene Symphony Orchestra, Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Arlington, Garland Symphony, and Central Oregon Symphony. In the media, Kiarra has been a featured performer on NPR’s From the Top, TedX, and Cleveland’s classical radio station WCLV.

As an artist, Kiarra has always believed in the importance of learning music from diverse genres. As a child, she attended several fiddle camps and studied with renowned Scottish, Irish, bluegrass, and Texas style fiddlers. These experiences helped broaden her vision of what it means to make music in the 21st century and the role music can have in exposing listeners to different cultural traditions.

Kiarra holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music (Bachelor of Music) and McGill University’s Schulich School of Music (Master of Music, Graduate Diploma, Artist Diploma). Her primary mentors have included Jaime Laredo, Jinjoo Cho, Jan Mark Sloman, and Kathryn Lucktenberg.