Prep Alumni Spotlight: Heather Wittels '01 Prep, '07 MM, '08 GD

Heather Wittels is a member of the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra first violin section, the Director of Chamber Music at the University of Chicago, and Artist Faculty at Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts. Since 2022, Heather spends her summers serving as concertmaster of the AIMS Festival Orchestra in Graz, Austria. Prior to that she was the associate concertmaster of the Glimmerglass Opera Festival Orchestra in Cooperstown, New York. She performs as a principal player/concertmaster with the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago, the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Chicago Opera Theater, and is a regular substitute violinist with both The Cleveland Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Heather is an avid chamber musician and regularly performs chamber music concerts in Chicago and beyond.

Heather graduated cum laude from Yale University with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry, with distinction. Subsequently she earned a Masters in Music and Graduate Diploma in violin performance in the studio of Malcolm Lowe at the New England Conservatory, as beneficiary of the 2007 Tourjée Alumni Award for graduate study. She was a Fellow of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida and a three time Tanglewood Music Center Fellow. A native of Brookline, MA, Heather began the violin at age three. 

What does NEC Prep mean to you?

It was my all-around music education! I spent so many weekends learning clefs, harmonic progressions, singing, orchestra, chamber music, and violin with kids from all over New England. It was the first place I learned about music other than as a player, and that time in my life holds so many memories that come back when I work on music. Because of the NEC and Jordan Hall environments that surround the prep school, I got to see for the first time what a future in music could look like.

Can you share an experience you've had in your career that has felt the most rewarding?

My favorite career experiences fall into two categories: playing music with musicians I admire and enjoy, and watching my students perform. Last summer I spent a week performing chamber music with my mentor and several other colleagues. Right now the Lyric Opera of Chicago is performing Richard Strauss's opera Salome, which was on my audition there 17 years ago and which I am finally now getting to bring to life as part of an orchestra of nearly 100 people. And I am in my fourth year as the Director of Chamber Music at The University of Chicago, where I feel such pride and delight when I watch my students perform, knowing how hard they have worked and how far they have come.

Share a story about one of your favorite faculty or studio instructors.

My private teacher when I was at NEC prep was Magdalena Richter. She taught me to tailor etudes to the skills required by the pieces I was currently playing, and to make up new etudes as needed to train specific passage work. This approach has served me very well throughout my career. I am performing the world premiere of a new violin concerto next month, and I brought it to her the week I got the music so we could talk about a strategy for managing the specific technical challenges of this new piece! After all these years, she's still one of the first people I think of to consult when I am figuring out a complicated, brand new work.

Do you have any advice for young professionals, musicians, and current NEC students?

Stay curious! Watch how other people - the great players as well as your peers - do things and imitate them (at home). Try different fingerings and bowings than are on the page and learn to play passages more than one way (in terms of tempo, articulation, interpretation), convincingly. The goal is to try things on, use your imagination, really hone several ways of playing something, and find a way for yourself to let your voice shine through the instrument and the composition. Keep taking lessons and coachings and asking questions of people you admire. Cultivate a mentor or several.

Learn More About Heather:

Current Job: Director of Chamber Music, The University of Chicago;  First Violin Section, Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra; Artist Faculty, Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts
Programs: NEC Preparatory School, Master of Music, Graduate Diploma
Instrument: Violin

Calling all NEC Prep Alumni!