Teacher Profile: Karina Mandock-Saldivar

About Karina Mandock-Saldivar

Karina Mandock Saldivar started her journey in music in middle school. She played the flute in concert band and continued through high school and briefly in college. She took piano lessons also in middle school, but is primarily self-taught and continues using the piano and flute to compose in her spare time. Her primary instrument is voice which she began at 14. She chose it as her instrument when she went to college, initially planning to study composition, and then later switching to voice performance. As a sophomore at Georgia State University she was part of the opera outreach program and sang excerpts as Mimi from La Bohème. That same school year she also won the Georgia NATS competition in her category.

She transferred from GSU to the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2016 where she participated in the Georgia Tech Chamber Choir, and in the Georgia Tech Concert Band. At Georgia Tech, she studied abroad in Spain where she performed with La Coro de la Orquesta Ciudad de Granada and performed in El Auditorio Manuel de Falla. She graduated from Georgia Tech with Highest Honors with a B.S. in Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies and a minor in music in 2019.

Afterwards, she received her M.M. in Vocal Pedagogy from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee in 2022. She has been teaching privately since 2021, teaching ages 12-50+. She has worked with many international students inspiring her lecture “Crossing Boundaries: Working with ELL Students in the Voice Studio” which explored the potential challenges of working with international English Language Learner (ELL) students and possible solutions. In 2021, she taught at the conservatory virtually and was also the assistant director of the Georgia Tech Chamber Choir. In 2022, she participated in Canto Vocal Program where she sang in Suor Angelica, and other concerts.

Karina is really passionate about meeting students where they are and adjusting to each student’s unique personality and goals. Her main focus is to share the love of music and to encourage true self-expression in their chosen instrument, whether it is piano, flute or voice.