May 2026 Amber Grant Awarded to Rozanna’s Violins

We’re excited to announce the May $10,000 Amber Grant recipient. Congratulations to Rozanna Weinberger, founder of Rozanna’s Violins.

Recently, WomensNet Advisory Board member Marcia Layton Turner sat down with Rozanna for an exclusive interview. You can listen to their conversation and view the transcript below.

Video Transcript

Marcia: Welcome, and thank you all for tuning in to learn from our May 2026 Amber grant winner, who is Rozanna Weinberger of Rozanna’s Violins.

I’m Marcia Layton Turner, and I’m one of several WomensNet advisory board members. Every other month, I get the pleasure of chatting with and learning from our amazing winners.

Rozanna, how about telling everyone a little bit about your company, what you sell, where you got the idea, and how things are going?

Rozanna: Sure. I studied music for many years. From as early as I can remember, I was playing and singing, and my family was doing all kinds of performances together. I went on to study at Juilliard and work professionally for many years. But I also had a really pivotal experience not long after I graduated. There was an article in The New York Times that cited the large number of graduates from the school who were unable to find work in their respective fields, and that was really… That sounded the alarm to me. That said to me that, you know, Darwinism was having its way, and that we had to learn from this, that it was a teachable moment.

So, a couple of things I concluded from that. One was that we needed to teach youth in a more creative way, since youth learn in many different ways. Some youth respond to sound readily. Some need a visual. And much more specifically, really young kids love what they’re doing when it’s sort of a multi-sensory experience.

The other reason that I wanted to create my company is that I wanted to create something that would get youth to want to play music, specifically to strive to be able to play a violin, viola, or cello. Not only did I believe in the tools it would give them for life, but I also believe that music has the ability to really cultivate one’s heart. And I believe that when we can cultivate a youth’s heart, I think that they will become human beings who have more compassion for the people around them, who can become citizens of the world, who we can really entrust this world to, you know?

So that’s definitely the philosophical reason that I founded my company, and the more practical one was that I really saw a need for violins to be as relatable as guitars. I looked at the guitar market as a model, you know? I saw that guitars could be available for all kinds of styles and appealing to all kinds of people. So I felt that one way that I could really address the ability to bring in more people into the fold was to make violins more relatable. Not only really high quality, but ones that kids go, “Oh, my gosh, I want to play that instrument.” So seeing smiles is always the end result and the end goal in my company, and that’s certainly at the heart of why I do what I do.

Marcia: Excellent. Now let’s talk a little bit about what some resources are, or maybe if you had to pick one or two resources that you found especially helpful as you were getting started, or even as you started to grow?

Rozanna: Sure. I mean, I could definitely speak wholeheartedly to the SCORE [Service Corps of Retired Executives] entity. I came across it when I think I was searching for help because they definitely don’t teach you business skills at Juilliard or any of the conservatories that I went to. So finding mentors from SCORE was absolutely instrumental because I had the good fortune to be in front of world-class business people who really kicked the tires on my ideas. You know, I would come in thinking I’m a genius, you know, and by the time I was done, well, let’s just say that I got a lot of really great constructive criticism.

And I think in running any company, there are going to be things that we’re naturally good at and things that we have no skill set for whatsoever. And I think having a mentor who’s able to point out to you, “Oh, you know, great, your idea is great, but what about your books? How are you going to actually achieve this monetarily, and how are you going to really plan accordingly and really take, when it’s needed, a triage approach to your finances so you can achieve your goals?”

So certainly that has been really helpful. And also the She Rocks Awards. Winning that award was an incredible opportunity. It was a source of prestige, but it also brought me together with a lot of like-minded women with whom I have really come to feel a great sisterhood.

And then last but not least, I would say WEALF [Women’s Enterprise Action Leadership Fund], which I came across because of my SCORE mentor, and they were able to give me a loan. But in addition to that, they gave me their hearts and all their efforts to really support me along the way.

Marcia: Wonderful. So, going from talking about resources, let’s talk about marketing and what you’ve seen so far that has worked.

Rozanna: Oh, well, I think as far as marketing goes, certainly for my company, from the start, we had a certain kind of advantage because we were such a differentiator out of the gate, you know? And that’s one of the reasons online, for example, we tend to do very well because online, so many musical instruments, violins in particular, kind of look the same to a certain sector. You know, to the people who didn’t get trained to know what they’re looking at, you know? But our instruments obviously stand out.

And then I think the other thing that we do is we try to fill a need. We try to fill a gap. So, for example, we’ve created instruments with street art, instruments that resonate with different cultures, that resonate with different age groups, and so forth. We do a bit of research to really understand what will be compelling to our different markets. And I think definitely finding a differentiator is very important. Certainly, with a new project we have coming up with an integrated musical instrument, we did a lot of research to really determine how we could differentiate and really excel.

And then finally, I do want to say AI has been very helpful. I know that this is something that is controversial, and I’m glad to hear that many people here have had positive experiences. I can say for sure, as an entrepreneur, that certain tasks that I needed to get done that I simply did not have the budget to hire people for, I was able to get help with using AI. My website, as an example, I happen to use Shopify because they actually happen to have a fairly nice AI tool, such that I can teach myself just the tiniest bit of coding and get quite a bit done. Not to mention the types of content generation that I would have to hire people to do, which I simply don’t have the luxury of. So I definitely am appreciative of that from that respect.

Marcia: Excellent. So, last question. What’s one thing that the WomensNet community can do to show support for your business?

Rozanna: First of all, definitely the platform to make my business known to many more people is invaluable, and I’m utterly grateful for that. And I think the first thing that came to mind, actually, when you asked that question, was where it’s possible, sometimes people need one-on-one with somebody, a one-on-one mentor. Sometimes people may not divulge things that they’re struggling with in a Facebook group because it’s something that they’re maybe embarrassed to talk about, that’s too hard to talk about, especially when… You know what I mean? We can think of all the different things that we don’t like to share publicly. And so in that regard, if there’s some way, certainly to whatever extent that I can volunteer, you know, to be of service. I just think it’s possible that component might be useful for people.

Marcia: Love it. Great idea. So thank you again for sharing your story with us, making the time to be here today, and congratulations again for being our May Amber grant winner.