About

Kimberly Fitch is an active performer and teacher in the Los Angeles area. Fitch holds a Bachelor of Music from the Eastman School of Music, and Master of Music in Viola Performance from UC Santa Barbara. She began her violin studies at age 7 with a neighbor in her hometown of Ashland, OR. At age 11 she attended a production of “Twelfth Night” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival featuring an onstage trio of English Horn, Viola and Double-Bass and she became intrigued with the beautiful, deeper tones of the viola. She kept up with her violin studies, but when a chance came to study viola at the Britt Chamber String Institute with the Cavani Quartet, she lept at the chance and fell in love with playing the instrument as a chamber musician. Fitch went on to study at the alma-mater of the Cavanis, the Eastman School of Music where she studied with the Ying Quartet’s violist Phillip Ying, and continued her studies as a member of the Young Artist String Quartet at UCSB, studying viola with Helen Callus. Fitch has also studied with world-renowned teachers in the United States and Europe including James Dunham, Jeffrey Irvine, Carol Rodland and Richard Wolfe. An enthusiast for contemporary music, Fitch performed regularly at 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 and the Bartok Viola Concerto with the University Symphony Orchestra in Santa Barbara as a first place winner of the Concerto Soloists Competition. Fitch was a semifinalist at the 2005 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, winner of the 2002 Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon Concerto Competition, and recipient of the John Celentano Award for Excellence in Chamber Music at the Eastman School. Fitch performed as a violist and string coach for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2014 production of Into the Woods, and as a violinist in the 2015 world-premier musical by Jeff Whitty, Head Over Heels, and Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in 2017. Fitch returns to Pasadena after most recently performing as an onstage violinist, actor and dancer in Paula Vogel’s play, Indecent, directed by Shana Cooper at OSF.