About

Kimberly Fitch holds a Bachelor of Music from the Eastman School of Music, and Master of Music in Viola Performance from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Fitch has studied with world-renowned teachers and performers in the United States and Europe including Helen Callus, Phillip Ying, Nathan Cole, James Dunham, Jeffrey Irvine, Carol Rodland and Richard Wolfe, and has played in master classes for Karen Tuttle, Karen Ritscher, Susan Dubois and Erika Eckert. An enthusiast for contemporary music, Fitch has performed music by composers such as Beat Furrer, Matthias Pintscher, Steve Reich and Wolfgang Rihm, as well as works by faculty members and students of Eastman as a member of Musica Nova, OSSIA, and The Cape Cod Experiment.  Fitch has worked with new music expert Brad Lubman as well as period music scholars Christel Thielmann and Kristian Bezeidenhout. As a scholarship recipient, Fitch attended the Aspen Music Festival, Fontainebleau Schools in France, The Britt Institute with the Cavani and Pacifica Quartets, Soundfest Quartet Institute with the Colorado Quartet, and the Port Townsend Chamber Music Festival with the Tokyo Quartet. Solo appearances include the Carl Stamitz Viola Concerto with the Rogue Valley Symphony in Ashland, OR, the Bartok Viola Concerto with the University Symphony Orchestra in Santa Barbara as a first place winner of the Concerto Soloists Competition, and the Ernst Bloch Suite (1919) as winner of the 2002 Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon Concerto Competition. Fitch was a semifinalist at the 2005 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and a recipient of the John Celentano Award for Excellence in Chamber Music at the Eastman School. Fitch landed her first orchestra job at age 16 with the Rogue Valley Symphony of Oregon, where she returned to play Principal Viola as an adult. Also frequenting as a guest Principal Viola of the Newport Symphony in Oregon and North State Symphony, Fitch enjoys leadership roles immensely, but also finds joy in rotating around the section. Fitch performed as violist and string coach for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2014 production of Into the Woods, as violinist in the 2015 world-premier musical by Jeff Whitty, Head Over Heels, and Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in 2017. Performing as an onstage violinist, actor and dancer in Paula Vogel’s Indecent, directed by Shana Cooper in 2019, was one of Fitch’s most treasured roles. After many years in the Los Angeles area, Fitch currently makes her home in Sacramento, California, with her young children.