About
Biography
Valery Breshears, age 17, began her violin studies at age 2 and was accepted into the San Francisco Conservatory of Music at 5, where she studied with Zhao Wei. She is currently a Thibaudet Scholar at the Colburn Academy in Los Angeles, studying with Margaret Batjer. She serves as Concertmaster and Principal Second of the Colburn Virtuosi Ensemble.
Valery has appeared as a soloist with the Fremont Symphony Orchestra, Nova Vista Symphony, Palo Alto Symphony, and California Youth Symphony. She has earned numerous competition honors, including First Prize at the 2025 Johansen International String Competition, prizes at the Chicago International Violin Competition and the Pacific Musical Foundation and Society Competition, and in 2025, she was named a laureate of the Stulberg International String Competition. In 2021, she received the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award.
In 2024, Valery attended the Accademia Musicale Chigiana festival in Siena, Italy, where she studied with Salvatore Accardo and Bruno Giuranna as both a soloist and a member of her string quartet. In January 2026, Valery was named a YoungArts Young Artist with Distinction. During the summer of 2026, she attended the Music Academy of the West, and in August 2026, she will attend the Shkolnikova Academy. She has also collaborated with composer Missy Mazzoli, violinist Chee-Yun Kim, and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
A devoted chamber musician, Valery performs with the Breshears String Quartet, which won First Prize at the 2023 Piero Farulli International Competition in Italy and earned the Silver Medal at the 2024 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.
Valery performs on a violin by Antoine Nedelec & Jeff Phillips and the 1705 Baron von der Leyen, Ex-Klaveness Stradivari, generously on loan.
