Venezuelan violinist Maria Romero Ramos is on faculty at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music, where she teaches violin, chamber music, and historical strings at the collegiate and precollege levels. She is also an instructor at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in the summers. Prior to her appointment at Vanderbilt University, Romero was on faculty at the Indiana University String Academy, where she worked closely with violin and viola pedadogue Mimi Zweig. An alumna of Venezuela’s El Sistema music program, Romero is passionate about music education as a tool for social empowerment and transformation. She has served as teacher, program director, and development director for MusAid, an nonprofit organization devoted to providing teacher training and instrument repair workshops to music schools in underserved communities around the world. Romero is actively involved with the Sphinx Organization’s initiatives to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in classical music and has been a guest panelist at the annual SphinxConnect Conference. A graduate of the Global Leaders Program with an Executive Graduate Certificate in social enterprise, cultural agency, teaching artistry, and civic leadership, she serves as mentor for GLP’s Líderes Emprendedores #LaJoven program in collaboration with the Filarmónica Joven de Colombia.

Romero has performed in Europe, Asia, and North, Central, and South America. She collaborated with Wayne Wallace and Michael Spiro’s Grammy-nominated album “Canto América'' for Best Latin Jazz Album in 2016. Romero is concertmaster for Music City Baroque and plays with the Nashville Opera, Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Princeton Festival Baroque Orchestra, Mountainside Baroque, and Arts on Alexander. She has also collaborated with ensembles including Les Délices, Orchester Wiener Akademie, Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, Bourbon Baroque,Michigan Bach Collective, and New Vintage Baroque. Romero has been featured in festivals such as the Boston Early Music Festival, Bloomington Early Music Festival, Valley of the Moon Music Festival, Bloomington Bach Cantata Project, and Vietnam Connection Music Festival. She performed in the Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall with the Sphinx Virtuosi chamber orchestra.

Romero is a candidate for the Doctor of Music degree in violin with Kevork Mardirossian at Indiana University, where she also obtained a M.M. degree. While at IU, she studied baroque violin with Stanley Ritchie and violin pedagogy with Mimi Zweig. Romero holds a Graduate Artist Certificate and B.M. degree from the University of North Texas, where she studied violin with Julia Bushkova and baroque violin with Cynthia Roberts. Romero lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband, pianist Nicholas Reynolds.