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David Sariti

Associate Professor, Violin
Office Address/Hours
OCH 207

Biography

Violinist David Sariti has built a wide-ranging musical career, with performance and scholarship interests that span four centuries.  Known for bringing fresh insight to works both familiar and unfamiliar, he has appeared as recitalist at universities across the country, as soloist with orchestra, and in diverse chamber collaborations, including recently at the  2025 International Horn Symposium.  A previous all-Mendelssohn piano trio program was hailed as “Chamber music at a high professional level, reflecting credit on the schools that choose to have their students taught by musicians who not only have academic credentials but are also first-class performing artists.” (Classical Voice of North Carolina).  An ardent proponent of new music, he has performed works by composers throughout the Southeast, including UVA Professor Emeritus Judith Shatin.

Equally fluent performing music written before 1900 with period instruments and performance practices, Sariti is a member of Synnet, which performs 17th-century music for strings and winds, and Baroque and Beyond, which performs a wide range of repertoire.  He has also appeared with the Vivaldi Project,  Washington Bach Consort, and others.  He was a founding member of “Mr. Jefferson’s Musicians”, which was featured on the Gotham Early Music series in New York, and has given numerous solo presentations on Jefferson’s music, being featured on the CD “Music from the Jefferson Collection”.  An improviser of music both old and new, he has been guest soloist with the UVA Jazz Ensemble, and frequent collaborator with John D'earth and the late Greg Howard.

Sariti joined the UVA faculty in 2005, and is Director of the period-instrument Baroque Orchestra, performs on the faculty Chamber Music Series, and is Principal Violin II of the Charlottesville Symphony, having previously served in over a dozen professional symphonies.  He was Director of Music Performance in 2021-24, and in 2016-17 was part of the first cohort of College Arts Fellows.  His studio teaching emphasizes the development of a relaxed, efficient technique and comprehensive musicianship skills that enable students to make informed interpretive decisions.  His articles on topics ranging from performance practice to string pedagogy have been featured in Early Music America, American String Teacher, and American Music Teacher.  He holds degrees from the Hartt School, where he also taught studio violin and music history, the University of Akron, and Ithaca College; studies were with Pamela Gearhart, Katie Lansdale, Emlyn Ngai, Pamela Frank, and members of the Cleveland and Miami quartets and the Meadowmount Trio.