Christiana Fortune-Reader is a multi-faceted musician, passionate about the intersection of teaching, performing, community building, and arts advocacy. She teaches violin and viola in the Music Department at SUNY New Paltz as Assistant Professor of Music, and conducts the College Youth Symphony. Prior to this appointment, she taught at Illinois State University, where she also served as the Assistant Principal Viola of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra.

Her research interests broadly look at music as a tool for social change, both in the early childhood, among college-aged students, and within communities of professional chamber music and orchestral ensembles.

She performs regularly with the Minnesota and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestras and the Innigkeit Quartet based in the midwest, and has held positions with the Rochester Philharmonic and the Wichita Symphony Orchestras. She has also performed with the contemporary music ensemble, “American Wild,” a septet dedicated to commissioning new works by American composers inspired by the outdoors and National Parks sites around the United States.

She earned a doctoral degree in Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music, studying with Carol Rodland, and is completing a doctorate in music education (ABD). She graduated from the University of Southern California (BM) and the Cleveland Institute of Music (MM), studying with Jeffrey Irvine, Lynne Ramsey, Donald McInnes, and Karen Ritscher.

She performs on a viola by Hiroshi Iizuka.