Olga Amelkina-Vera grew up in Belarus and moved to the United States in 1997. She holds a Bachelor’s of Arts in Music Summa Cum Laude from the University of St. Thomas in Houston. She also holds Masters of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the University of North Texas in Denton.  Olga has also been greatly influenced by her lessons and masterclasses with Robert Guthrie and Matteo Mela.

Olga is an active performer and award-winning composer of works with guitar. She has received commissions for solo guitar and guitar ensemble music, as well as compositions for guitar with other instruments and voice. Olga’s solo composition Ex Tenebris, commissioned by Valerie Hartzell, has recently been published by the Productions d’Oz as part of the Frank Koonce Series. In 2009, Olga was named the winner of the Austin Classical Guitar Society’s Guitar Ensemble Composition Competition for her quartet Ninochka.

As a soloist, Olga was a prizewinner in the Eastfield Collegiate Guitar Competition and a finalist in the University of Texas at Dallas International Guitar Competition. Her playing was described by the judges as possessing “beautifully sung lines, solid technique, lovely tone and projection!” Olga is a recurring member of the “Classical Minds” Guitar Institute & Competition faculty, and has been invited to teach and perform at numerous festivals such as the Fort Worth Guitar Guild Festival, Mesquite Guitar Festival and the Guitar Orchestra Workshop.

The Kithara Duo is made up of Olga and her husband, guitarist Fernand Vera. The duo was formed in 2002 and since then has performed in Europe as well as North and South America. Kithara Duo strives to expand the guitar repertoire through their many arrangements and Olga’s original compositions.

Olga’s interest in early music has led her to play in a viol consort. She studies and arranges for guitar seventeenth-century English lyra viol music. Her doctoral dissertation on the subject was recently published in Soundboard Magazine. Her article on Dionisio Aguado’s Variations on the Fandango is scheduled to be published in an upcoming issue.

Olga’s other interests include fine arts, literature, and foreign languages. She currently lives in Denton, TX.