Our Story
The Iaso (ee-aa-so) Arts Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2024. Its mission seeks to create a platform that promotes the exploration and presentation of the arts. Through cross-disciplinary and cross-genre performances, artists will channel their creativity and artistic visions to push the boundaries of the current Artscape in various, diverse venues.
More importantly, these performances aim to raise awareness and support for the health and mental wellbeing of our community, particularly for our healthcare professionals.The mental health of our medical community is oftentimes overlooked, and with the profound strain the COVID-19 pandemic put on the healthcare system, medical professional burnout rates were brought to the forefront. Through our diverse performances and events, we not only hope to alleviate some of this burden, but to also create an environment in which everyone in the community can come together and prioritize their own mental wellbeing and positivity. In fact, this important goal of our mission inspired our foundation name, Iaso, who is the minor Greek goddess of recuperation, recovery, and healing.
Our foundation seeks to support organizations such as The Physicians Foundation, Project Hope, the American Nurses Foundation, and others like them, all of which actively support and empower our healthcare providers.
About Me
Sofia Llacer Chamberlain is a classically trained, independent violinist based in the Bay Area, California. She received her dual bachelor’s degrees in Biological Sciences and Violin Performance at the University of Southern California, where she studied violin under Professor Glenn Dicterow at the Thornton School of Music. As a result of her dual degrees, Sofia cultivated an interest in the intersection of music and the sciences, particularly in the impact of music within our daily lives. Through her time as a research assistant at the USC Brain and Creativity Institute, she became fascinated with how music affects and develops our cognitive abilities, how music affects our emotional responses, and how music seems to connect people as a universal language. Combined with her own experiences working within the healthcare field, her observations of music’s positive influence on the human mind spurred her commitment to use music as a vessel to spread positivity and a sense of belonging, which ultimately contributed to the birth of the Iaso Arts Foundation.
