Joanna Mulfinger - Concertmaster
Joanna Mulfinger is a native of Greenville, SC. She graduated from Bob Jones University and continued her education at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, MD, receiving a Masters Degree under the tutelage of renowned Russian pedagogue Victor Danchenko. While at Peabody, she was awarded the J.C. van Hulsteyn Prize for Outstanding Musical and Academic Contributions. She has pursued additional summer music studies at the Juilliard School in New York, the Hanns Eisler Hochschule Fur Musik in Berlin, Germany, and other festivals in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Canada. Since returning to Greenville she has developed a large studio of private students, and has been on the faculty of several local universities.
Joanna appreciates learning about all kinds of music. In 2016 she learned and performed a new work for erhu, a stringed instrument of Chinese origin. And, in 2017, as a result of her interest in Baroque violin playing, she started a Baroque String Ensemble at Anderson University, which she led for four years. Professionally, she has performed with Baroque ensembles, including The Sebastians in New York and New Jersey, and is currently a member of Early Music New York.
Joanna is active at the Peace Center in Greenville, where she enjoys playing with National Tours of Broadway shows such as Disney’s Lion King, Chicago, Phantom of the Opera, My Fair Lady, White Christmas, Something Rotten, Motown, Newsies, Porgy and Bess, The Producers, Young Frankenstein, Evita, West Side Story, and Wizard of Oz, among others. She is also in demand to accompany local performances of popular touring artists such as Smokey Robinson, Celtic Woman, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Josh Groban, Mannheim Steamroller, Anne Murray, Wayne Newton, and Johnny Mathis.
As a chamber musician, Joanna is a member of several local ensembles including the Mulfinger String Quartet, Trio Tapestry (guitar, cello, violin), Tryptich Musica (piano, horn, violin), and Steve Eager and Friends, a band that covers pop and Broadway tunes.
She is an active orchestral musician. From 2007-2019 she was Assistant Concertmaster and then Concertmaster of the Spartanburg Philharmonic, and in 2022 returned as Interim Concertmaster. She has been Principal Second Violin of the Greenville Symphony Orchestra since 2003.
Joanna performs on a 1653 Nicolo Amati violin, a violin she inherited from her mother.
