Jeffrey Irvine is the first-prize winner of the 1979 Aspen Music Festival Viola Competition and 1976 Cleveland Quartet Competition (as a member of the Carmel Quartet). As a member of the New World String Quartet, Mr. Irvine performed throughout the United States and Europe, including concerts at Carnegie Recital Hall and the Kennedy Center. Mr. Irvine was the Principal Violist of the Wichita Symphony from 1977 to 1981 and has also been a member of the Aspen Festival Orchestra and Chamber Symphony.
He joined the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music as the Fynette H. Kulas Professor of Viola in September of 1999. He was Professor of Viola at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music from 1983 to 1999 and was also chair of the Oberlin's string division from 1992 to 1999. His students have gone on to major orchestral, teaching and chamber music posts across the country and around the world. His students have often been First Prize Winners in major viola competitions, including the Primrose Competition, the ASTA National Solo Competition, and the Washington International Competition. Mr. Irvine previously taught at Wichita State University and the Eastman School of Music.
Jeffrey Irvine is also active as a teacher and performer at summer festivals. Since 2012 he has been the viola teacher at the Perlman Music Program. He was on the faculty of the ENCORE School for Strings from 1999 until 2007 and taught at the Aspen Music Festival from 2000 through 2011. He previously taught at Aspen from 1981 to 1991, appearing regularly in the Festival’s chamber music concerts and in its Fromm Week of New Music. In the interval he taught and performed at various summer festivals, including the Meadowmount School of Music, the Killington Music Festival, the Park City Chamber Music Festival, Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts, and the Castleman Quartet Program. He also taught at the Heifetz Intermational Music Festival from 2008 through 2011.
Mr. Irvine is on the Artistic Advisory Board of the Journal of Performing Arts Medicine. He has published numerous articles on viola pedagogy in American String Teacher and the Journal of the American Viola Society.
Mr. Irvine received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Philadelphia Musical Academy and his Master of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music. His teachers have included Heidi Castleman, Charles Castleman, Dorothy DeLay, Martha Katz, William Primrose, Margaret Randall, Karen Tuttle, and Donald Weilerstein.