Renowned concertmaster joins Jacobs faculty

The Jacobs School of Music faculty has secured more bragging rights for next fall after hiring professor, violinist and concertmaster Jorja Fleezanis.

“It’s been a five-year conversation,” said Alain Barker, Jacobs director of marketing and publicity.

Barker said Fleezanis will work with orchestral students, primarily strings.

Fleezanis will fill a much-needed position within the school, said Lawrence Hurst, chair of the strings department.

“It’s a strategic hiring policy of the University,” he said, adding that her decades of experience in various roles will be a great advantage. “We have heard really good things about her in all respects.”

One of the first female concertmasters for a major American orchestra, Fleezanis has spent the last 20 years as concertmaster for the Minnesota Orchestra and has been a guest artist and visiting professor at Jacobs for the past five.

“She’s been here through the years,” Barker said. “She wants to engage more directly as a teacher.”

Fleezanis has also been an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota since 1990 and has taught at The Juilliard School, the New World Symphony and The Boston Conservatory.

Read tomorrow's IDS for more information.