Violin
Zvi Zeitlin was born in Russia and raised in Israel. At age 11 he became the youngest scholarship student in the history of the Juilliard School. He has performed the entire violin repertoire with most of the great orchestras of the world under such conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, Christoph von Dohnányi, James Levine, Pierre Boulez, and Igor Stravinsky, and has frequently toured Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Latin America. Mr. Zeitlin premiered the Schöenberg Violin Concerto in Buenos Aires (1964), also recording it for Deutsche Grammophon with conductor Rafael Kubelik. He premiered the Berg Violin Concerto, both in São Paolo (1975) and Shanghai (1994), and has recorded all of Stravinsky's violin and piano works and the unaccompanied Elegy, as well as two CDs of works by American composers Copland, Reynolds, Foss, Druckman, Adler, and Rochberg for the Gasparo label.
A number of leading composers have written works for Mr. Zeitlin, including a concerto by Carlos Surinach commissioned in 1982 by the Music Academy of the West, which he performed to great acclaim with the Academy Festival Orchestra and with the Pittsburgh Symphony directed by Theo Alcantara.
Mr. Zeitlin is a professor of violin at the Eastman School of Music, where he was named the first Kilbourn Professor in 1974 and Distinguished Professor of Violin in 1998. He was awarded the Edward Peck Curtis Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2004. The Eastman School commissioned a concerto for Mr. Zeitlin from Gunther Schuller, which he premiered at the Lucerne Festival in 1976 and subsequently performed with orchestras worldwide, including the symphonies of Boston, Baltimore, and Utah, and the Halle Orchestra in England, as well as in Frankfurt, Germany, and Sydney, Australia. In 1962, with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Mr. Zeitlin premiered a concerto written for him by composer Paul Ben-Haim, and subsequently performed the work worldwide. He is a founding member of the Eastman Trio and has recorded for the Vox label.
Mr. Zeitlin has taught in Beijing, Shanghai, and Seoul, and is a frequent visitor in England at the Menuhin School, Chetham's School, Wells Cathedral School, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Royal Academy of Music, and the Royal Northern College of Music, as well as in Israel at the Jerusalem Music Center. He has taught at the Yokosuka Festival in Japan and the Keshet Eilon Violin Mastercourse in Israel, and gives masterclasses throughout the United States and Canada. His students are winners of international competitions and occupy concertmasterships and other leading positions in orchestras, chamber groups, and universities in the United States, Europe, Australia, and other parts of the globe.
He has been a member of the Music Academy faculty since 1973.