Daphne Gerling enjoys an active career teaching, performing, and writing about the viola. From Amsterdam to Vietnam, and New Zealand to Costa Rica, Daphne’s travels have taken her to 38 universities around the United States, and to 16 countries overseas. She has been a summer fellow at Lincoln Center Education in New York, and performed on baroque viola with the Washington Bach Consort. Her dissertation, “Connecting Histories: Identity and Exoticism in the 1919 Viola Works of Ernest Bloch, Rebecca Clarke and Paul Hindemith (2007) led to her involvement in the 20/19 project.

Praised by the Strad for her “enterprising programming” her debut recording, “Encircling”, is released on the Acis label. It features lesser-known works by female composers active at the time of the 1919 Coolidge competition, and was presented as a featured recital at the International Viola Congresses in Thailand in 2023 and Brazil in 2024. Dr. Gerling studied viola, vocal performance, and historical musicology at Oberlin, CIM, and Rice.

She is deeply grateful to have been mentored by viola professors Jeffrey Irvine, Lynne Ramsey, Karen Ritscher, and James Dunham, and to have served as their graduate teaching assistant throughout her degrees. She undertook further studies with Heidi Castleman, Victoria Chiang, Joan DerHovsepian, Thomas Riebl, and Simon Rowland-Jones. She completed long-term Suzuki teacher training in Books 1-4 with Teri Einfeldt, and books 5-9 with Elizabeth Stuen-Walker, and loves working with pre-college students. Dr. Gerling’s students currently hold teaching and performing positions throughout the United States, Brazil, South Korea, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom. She is Assistant Professor of Viola at the University of North Texas, and President-Elect of the American Viola Society.

She also serves on the boards of the International Viola Society, and the Brazilian Viola Society. Her website is www.daphnegerling.com