Joan DerHovsepian is the newly appointed Principal Viola of the Houston Symphony after winning the international audition held in May 2023. She first joined the viola section of the Houston Symphony, hired by Christoph Eschenbach and won the audition for Associate Principal Viola in the fall of 2010 during the tenure of Hans Graf, and now begins serving as Principal with Music Director Juraj Valčuha.
Joan has appeared as guest Principal Viola with the Chicago and Cincinnati symphonies and was formerly Principal Viola of the Charleston Symphony. Recent solo performances with the Houston Symphony include the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with Concertmaster Yoonshin Song and the Bruch Double Concerto with Principal 2nd Violin MuChen Hsieh.
Recent festival and chamber music performances include the Seattle Chamber Music Society, Mainly Mozart Orchestra, Grand Teton Music Festival, Mimir Chamber Music Festival (Ft. Worth, TX and Melbourne, Australia), Music in Context, Peninsula Music Festival, New Canaan Chamber Music, Fabbri Chamber Concerts and Musica Tra Amici.
Joan is an Artist Teacher of Viola at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, lecturing students in viola orchestral repertoire and independent study. The viola orchestral repertoire course she has passionately taught for over 20 years at the Shepherd School has coached students to win positions in major orchestras across the U.S. and around the world. She is regular guest faculty for the New World Symphony and National Orchestral Institute, and has given masterclasses for viola students of The Juilliard School, the New England Conservatory, and the University of Melbourne Conservatorium, among others. Joan was featured as Artist-in-Residence for the American Viola Society in 2023.
She was the violist of the award-winning Everest Quartet, top prize winners at the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Joan was the second prize recipient of the Primrose International Viola Competition. She is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and pursued graduate study at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, Germany. Her teachers have included James Dunham and Kim Kashkashian. She has studied chamber music with Michael Tree, Joseph Silverstein, Eugene Lehner, Felix Galimir and members of the Cleveland, Emerson, and Juilliard Quartets.