Biography

Jeremy Black has been Principal Second Violin of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra since 2017, having joined the orchestra’s first violins under Mariss Jansons in 2002. Each summer he serves as concertmaster of the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra in Chicago, a chair he has held since 2005. He has appeared as guest concertmaster with orchestras across the United States, including the Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and Buffalo Philharmonic.

Black made his solo debut at age twelve with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a performance the Chicago Tribune praised for its “musical fire” and “effortless technique.” Recent solo highlights include the Dvořák Violin Concerto with Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Mendelssohn Concerto with Giancarlo Guerrero and the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, and Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins alongside Pinchas Zukerman. His concerto repertoire also spans Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi, Sarasate, Piazzolla, and John Williams, and his playing has been described as “technically dazzling but deeply expressive” by the Chicago Classical Review.

Black is sought after as a teacher as well as a performer. He maintains an active private studio, coaches Chamber Music Pittsburgh’s Montgomery Fellowship Quartet, and serves as first violin coach for the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Three Rivers Young Peoples Orchestras. He has given masterclasses at Roosevelt University, Penn State University, the Sphinx Performance Academy at Northwestern University, and Midwest Young Artists, and in the summer of 2026 he joins the faculty of the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan.

A native of Evanston, Illinois, Black was a student of the late Mark Zinger, a student and colleague of David Oistrakh. He went on to study with Linda Cerone in a joint program of Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Music, and with Paul Kantor at the University of Michigan. He took first prizes in the concerto competitions of both universities, as well as in the Society of American Musicians and Nordic Musical Arts competitions and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.

Jeremy Black lives in Pittsburgh’s Highland Park neighborhood with his wife, Kate, and their two sons. He plays a violin made by Lorenzo and Tommaso Carcassi, Florence, 1783.