Bettina Mussumeli

Violin soloist, pedagogue, and clinician Bettina Mussumeli enjoys a storied and varied career as a concert artist on the great stages of the world. While completing her artist diploma at the Juilliard School, in addition to being selected as a finalist at the New York Philharmonic violin auditions, she was offered the position of co-concertmaster and violin soloist of the Italian chamber orchestra "I Solisti Veneti," a world famous chamber orchestra which performed over 200 concerts yearly around the world. With this orchestra, she toured for nine years as featured soloist, and recorded numerous discs, including seminal recordings of the Pergolesi violin concerto and Vivaldi "L’estro Armonico," still frequently heard on classical radio stations today. A gifted performer on original instruments, she has also recorded works by Salomone Rossi, Alessandro Scarlatti, and Arcangelo Corelli with noted harpsichordist and scholar Emanuela Marcante. 

Mussumeli returned to the United States in 2001 to join the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) as professor of violin and chamber music. Her students at SFCM include winners and finalists of numerous competitions, including the Menuhin, Paganini, and Stradivarius competitions, as well as outstanding professional violinists working throughout the United States, Europe, and South America. While in San Francisco, Mussumeli was the first violinist of the Ives Quartet for 10 years, with whom she recorded a benchmark collection of the Quincy Porter quartets for the Naxos label and commissioned over 10 new string quartets, performing across the United States.

Commuting between her homes in Miami and Northern Italy, Mussumeli currently serves on the faculty of the Frost School of Music and the Zephyr Chamber Music Festival, and she maintains a varied concert calendar as both a soloist and chamber musician.