A Natural: Spotlight on Dr. Eliza Jeffords

Eliza Jeffords came by her love of music naturally-and in fact, she may have been born with it. Her father had learned to play the organ as a child. Her mother played both violin and bass in high school, then went on to sing in the Purdue University choirs. They enjoyed attending concerts at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where Jeffords' father worked-and taking their little girl along with them.

Jeffords was just a tyke when her mother first noticed it: her four-year-old daughter sitting on the floor, quietly coloring during the concerts, wrinkling her nose when someone was out of tune. Even at that tender age, Jeffords knew a sour note when she heard one, and her life changed the day she watched her mother pull her old high school violin out from under her bed. "I demanded to have a violin of my own," says Jeffords.

It wasn't long before she began her study of the violin. "Providentially, Boulder was home to William Starr," she says.

Starr was quite a natural himself when it came to music. He'd been a soloist with the Kansas City Philharmonic at 17. He'd played first violin with the Rochester Philharmonic and was the concertmaster of the Knoxville Symphony. In the 60s, he traveled to Japan and studied the Suzuki Method of teaching music with Shinichi Suzuki himself. To say that Starr was an expert in the method would be an understatement. He was the expert in America, bringing what was then a relatively new teaching philosophy to the nation. Starr was the founder and first president of the Suzuki Association of the Americas. He wrote several books about the method, and as it happened, was training future Suzuki teachers at the University of Colorado when young Eliza first took up the bow. "I was enrolled in lessons and the formation of my identity as a musician and teacher was set in motion. Growing up as a Suzuki violin student molded many of my basic beliefs about teaching and music that are inseparable from the teacher that I am today."

The summer after fifth grade, Jeffords was prompted to choose an instrument for the following year. "I felt like I wanted to try something new," she recalls. So, she tried all of the different instruments, and finally settled on the trombone. Her mother, however, suggested the viola since it was similar to the violin.

"As soon as I tried it and played the lowest string, the C string, I fell in love!" Jeffords says. "I taught myself alto clef over the summer and started playing it in orchestra right away, but I took both violin and viola lessons through high school."

After graduation, Jeffords went on to earn her B.M. in Viola Performance from Vanderbilt's Blair School of Music, then her M.M. from Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music, and finally her D.M.A. from the renowned College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati.

After finishing her D.M.A., she moved to Texas upon being offered a job at Texas Lutheran University, where she is now director of strings, an associate professor in the school of music, and holds the Anita Windecker Endowed Chair. "My position at TLU is really special because it combines both teaching for the university as well as performing in the Mid-Texas Symphony," she says. "Playing with MTS is part of my contract with TLU! It's the best of both worlds because I love both teaching and playing." Jeffords also serves on the Mid-Texas Symphony Music Committee and does work as a liaison between the symphony and the university.

Her fall semester, well underway, has been a busy one. "We have a lot of exciting things going on. I just played some chamber music concerts with our faculty which is one of my favorite things to do. In November I'll be taking the orchestra on tour to a few high schools to do recruiting, and next spring I'll be getting into high gear as the Chair for the Krost Symposium in 2025!"

In her free time, you can find Jeffords getting outside and hiking, hanging out with her family, traveling, cooking, and reading. And of course, always playing and learning, infusing her own infectious joy into the strings-a natural thing for one who has loved music for longer than she can remember.