Zsuzsanna Emödi received her Master of Art degree in violin performance from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary. Her main teachers were Dénes Kovács in solo performance and György Kurtág in chamber music. After completion of her college education, she played with the Hungarian State Opera House Orchestra. Later she joined the Budapest Strings and the Budapest Festival Orchestra under the direction of Iván Fischer. With both orchestras she made recordings and concertized internationally, giving concerts in Lucerne, Munich, Brussels, St. Petersburg, and Vienna, at the Musikverein’s Brahms-Hall.

After a stay in Lisbon, Ms. Emödi came to the United States in 1990. She worked with Michael Tilson Thomas for three years while playing with the New World Symphony. Together they toured to Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan, and to the UK, performing at the Barbican Center in London.

Moving to Washington, DC in 1998 after a position with the Florida Philharmonic, she appeared with such eminent conductors as Eduardo Mata (as concertmaster), James Conlon, and Stanisław Skrowaczewski, and performed with soloists including Yuri Bashmet, Lynn Harrell, Barbara Hendricks, and Vladimir Feltsman. In Washington she has played at the White House, Constitution Hall, the Kennedy Center, the National Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonian.

As a violist, Ms. Emödi has been assistant principal viola for two years with the Maryland Symphony Orchestra. In June 2002 she soloed on Bela Bartok’s Viola Concerto with the Jewish Community Orchestra in Rockville, MD. Currently she holds a tenured core viola position with the Richmond Symphony.