KURT TSENG ASSOCIATE PRINCIPAL

The Betty Ellen Madry Chair

Originally from Michigan, Kurt Tseng joined the North Carolina Symphony in 2020 as Associate Principal Viola. During the summers, he is also a member of the Des Moines Metro Opera Festival Orchestra. Before moving to the Raleigh-Durham area, he was a member of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.

Tseng has participated in music festivals including the Tanglewood Music Center, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, and Pacific Music Festival. An avid chamber musician, his many appearances include a performance in Miami with Sodam and the All-Stars, of which he is a founding member. He also spent two years in Miami Beach as a fellow with the New World Symphony.

Tseng began his musical studies at age 5 on the piano and was a student of the Piano Pedagogy Laboratory Program at the University of Michigan, where he worked with Kelley Benson. He later pursued viola under the instruction of Patricia Pats Gurin. His undergraduate studies were in the Tufts University-New England Conservatory dual degree program, where he studied with Martha Katz, receiving a bachelor’s degree in music and a bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in mathematics. He went on to complete a master’s degree at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he studied with Edward Gazouleas and served as an Associate Instructor in music theory.

When not playing the viola, Tseng attempts to cook, bake, and make drinks, and enjoys spending time with his partner Kevin Fitzgerald and their two dogs, Chipper and Bennie, who can be a real handful.