Jodi Levitz

Jodi Levitz, professor of viola at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami and Artistic Coordinator of Stamps Ensembles, boasts an international reputation as a consummate artist and a passionate advocate of exploring new musical possibilities for the viola. While a student at the Juilliard School, she won first-place at the D'Angelo and Hudson Valley competitions and then the position of principal viola soloist with the critically acclaimed Italian chamber group "I Solisti Veneti."

She has performed as soloist throughout Europe, South America, North America, and Asia and has recorded for the Concerto, Dynamic, Naxos and Erato labels. Her vast chamber music experience runs the gamut from violist of the Chicago String Trio and the Ives Quartet to historically informed recordings of the works of Hummel and Schumann with fortepiano.

A highly regarded educator and pedagogue, she was on the faculties of the Ars Musica Academy at Imola and Progetto Orchestra, and she presently serves as co-artistic director of the Zephyr International Chamber Music Festival in Courmayeur, Italy. As professor of viola and chamber music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, she served as both chair of strings and chair of chamber music.

A recipient of the Sarlo Family Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching, her students have claimed first prize awards from the Walter W. Naumburg and Fischoff chamber music competitions, while others have been recruited for positions in major orchestras and teaching institutions in the United States, Canada, and Europe.