Jorja Fleezanis
Violin
Concertmaster, Minnesota Orchestra
Jorja Fleezanis has been concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra since September of 1989, assuming that position after eight years with the San Francisco Symphony as Associate Concertmaster. In 2006 she was soloist in the John Adams Violin Concerto in Finland with the Lahti Symphony, Osmo Vnsk conducting and performed the Bernstein Serenade with the Minnesota Orchestra, Gilbert Varga conducting. She was a visiting artist-teacher at Indiana University where she held master classes and coached orchestral sectionals and also gave a recital and master classes at the University of Texas in Austin, Southwestern University, the University of Minnesota in Duluth and Concordia College in Fargo, ND with pianist Karl Paulnack. In 2007 she performed the Weill Concerto with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Barber Violin Concerto with the Springfield Symphony in Ohio and the Brahms Concerto with the Festival Institute Orchestra at the Round Top Festival.
The Minnesota Orchestra has commissioned two major solo works for her, the John Adams Violin Concerto and the Ikon of Eros by John Tavener, the latter recorded on Reference Records. The complete violin sonatas of Beethoven with the French fortepianist Cyril Huv were released in 2003 on the Cypr's label. Other recordings include Aaron Jay Kernis's Brilliant Sky, Infinite Sky on CRI, commissioned for her by the Schubert Club of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Stefan Wolpe's Violin Sonata with Garrick Ohlsson as her partner for Koch International. Her performance of the premiere of Nicholas Maw's Sonata for Solo Violin, commissioned for her by Minnesota Public Radio, was broadcast on Public Radio International's Saint Paul Sunday Morning in 1998 and in 1999 she gave the British premiere at the Chester Summer Festival. In 1998, she was the violin soloist in the American premiere of Britten's recently discovered Double Concerto for Violin and Viola.
Jorja Fleezanis has been an adjunct faculty member at the University of Minnesota since 1990. She is frequently a visiting teacher at Indiana University, the New World Symphony and has been on the faculty of the Round Top International Festival Institute since 1991. She has also been an artist and teacher at the Music@Menlo Festival since its debut season in 2003.
Ms. Fleezanis plays on a violin by the Venetian maker Matteo Goffriller made in 1700 that was donated to the Minnesota Orchestra for her use only. She is married to the musicologist, lecturer and writer Michael Steinberg, whose series of program note collections and recent book, For The Love Of Music, co-written with Larry Rothe, are published by Oxford University Press.