Gina Coletti
Pre-College Teacher
Violist Gina Coletti was born in Seoul, Korea and raised in Tacoma, Washington. As a chamber musician she has participated in festivals such as the Camerata Deia in Spain, St. Barts Music Festival in the French West Indies, Tucson Chamber Music Festival, Sunflower Music Festival, the Dilijan Chamber Music Series, and with the Synergy Ensemble in Los Angeles. Locally, she has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, LA Opera, Los Angeles Master Chorale, served as principal of the Mozart Chamber Orchestra and on numerous movie scores, commercials, and television appearances. She has performed alongside popular icons from, Prince, Alicia Keys, Carrie Underwood and Bruno Mars.
A dedicated educator, Ms. Coletti currently the director of classical music studies at the Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences in Santa Monica, home of the renown Elizabeth Mandell Music Institute. She is also the former Chair of the Ed and Mari Edelman Chamber Music Institute at the Colburn Community School of Performing Arts, and teaches viola at Colburn’s Community School of Performing Arts and Music Academy. She currently directs the Summer Chamber Music Intensive at the Colburn School. Her students have gone on to pursue further education at such institutions as Juilliard, New England Conservatory, Eastmann, Rice, USC, UCLA, Harvard and Yale and Stanford and have garnered regional and national awards. Recently, her students placed first, second and third place in the American String Teachers Association State Solo Competition. She has guided students to a Presidential Scholarship in the Arts and Finalist, in Young Arts.
She is founder of ViolaFest Los Angeles which over its 18 year annual run has brought together over 1800 student violists for an inspirational and educational day (www.socalviolasociety.org). She is a past president and vice president of the Southern California Viola Society. Ms. Coletti has served on faculty of the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program, the University of Nevada Las Vegas and Azusa Pacific University, and at summer courses in Prague (Ameropa International Music Festival) and Italy (Adriatic Chamber Festival) and is currently teaching gat the Interharmony International Music Festival in Italy. In 2007 she was an honoree for Los Angeles Music Week for her musical contributions to the community and was honored by the City of Los Angeles in the City Hall Chambers.
Ms. Coletti received a Master of Music from The Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Stanford University. She was a recipient of Stanford University’s Golden Medal in the Humanities for excellence in music. Her primary teachers have been Heidi Castleman, Misha Amory, and Ben Simon.
Ms. Coletti is married to violist Paul Coletti and they have two daughters, Olivia and Julia.
