Danijela ZeZelj-Gualdi

Danijela ZeZelj-Gualdi was born in Croatia where she began to study violin in 1984. By age eleven, she was the youngest member of the Zadar Chamber Orchestra which performed at Croatian venues such as Musical Evenings in St. Donat and the Zagreb Academy of Music. Her advanced study began at The Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, Serbia, where she studied with Professor Eugenia Tchougaeva. Here Ms. Zezelj-Gualdi was a member of the chamber orchestra Camerata Academica, which performed throughout Europe. In 1998 she graduated from the Academy and became a member of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra. A year later, she was awarded a full scholarship to Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she graduated with a Masters Degree in 2001. In 2002, she was accepted in the DMA program in violin performance at the University of Georgia, and studied with Dr. Michael Heald. She has participated in master classes with Pamela Frank and Andres Cardenes, among others.

Ms. Zezelj-Gualdi has played the violin and viola in solo and chamber recitals throughout the U.S. and Europe. She performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the University of Georgia Symphony Orchestra as a winner of its annual concerto competition. In 2004 she was a featured soloist at the University of Georgia performing recent works by Augusta Read Thomas and James MacMillan. In the fall of 2004 she joined with guitarist John Huston to form Duo Lunaire.