Faculty Spotlight: Itamar Zorman

Violinist and Jacobs professor Itamar Zorman on expressivity and teaching

By Raymond Fleischmann

The violinist Itamar Zorman, an associate professor of music in the Jacobs School of Music, has been called a “virtuoso of emotions,” and when you listen to his playing, it’s easy to understand why. His music’s self-assurance and technical perfection never detract from his expressivity; you hear every note he plays, and yet you also hear — with unmistakable clarity — that note’s excitement, joy, or sorrow.

“One thing that I hope my students take from lessons is not to be afraid to be expressive, even at the risk of making a mistake,” Zorman says. “In the end, we make music to make people’s life better, and for our concerts to be meaningful we should try to say something with every note.”

His 2022 album Violin Odyssey stands as a testament not only to his skill but the nuance of his artistry. The album explores lesser-known and infrequently performed repertoire, highlighting the work of ten different composers from five different continents. It’s a remarkable collection of music, and for an odyssey, it never seems the least bit lost.

“There is a lot of wonderful repertoire out there which rarely gets played, if at all,” Zorman says. “When one listens to a great work for the first time, it's really exciting, and that happened several times in this project. I love and appreciate all of the pieces recorded in that album, and they show that there is wonderful music being written for the violin all around the globe. For students interested in lesser-known repertoire, it teaches you about who you are as an artist — what kind of music do you like, what kind of music you want to promote.”

Born in Tel Aviv to a family of musicians, Zorman is reserved and soft-spoken, and in answering questions, he seems deeply disinclined to boastfulness and bragging. But his humility belies the towering achievements he’s already notched in his career.

He won the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition, one of the music world’s most coveted honors, and he’s performed in the Basilica of St. Francis with the RAI National Symphony following Pope Fracis’ Christmas blessing. He’s appeared as a soloist for the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the New World Symphony, and dozens more, and he’s performed with a star-studded array of conductors and other musicians; the pianist Mitsuko Uchida, for one, invited him to lead the Mahler Chamber Orchestra on a 2016 European tour of Mozart concerti.

But in talking with Zorman, the renown of these achievements seems far from his mind. Instead, he invariably returns to the music itself and, even more, to teaching. He’s keenly aware of the teachers who have come before him, and as a professor at Jacobs, he’s profoundly dedicated to passing those lessons on.

“We are all different people, and I encourage my students to showcase that, not be afraid be themselves, and not shy away from any influences they might have, which could even be from non-classical musicians or other art forms,” he says. “That being said, we also must do what is written in the score. It's a fine balance to find, but absolutely possible and, in the end, most gratifying for both performer and audience.”