Tuttle, Karen

(b Lewiston, Idaho, March 28, 1920; d Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 16, 2010).
American violist and pedagogue. Tuttle began playing violin at a young age and dropped out of
the eighth grade when she promised her mother that she would practice violin for four hours a
day if home-schooled. This tenacity jumpstarted her career at the age of 14, as a freelancer. The
majority of her playing was in Hollywood on film soundtracks as a session musician.
Tuttle considered quitting violin permanently as she felt her technique was tense and injurious.
After watching violist William Primrose during one of his concerts with the London String
Quartet she noticing his natural playing style. Eager to study with him, she approached him and
he gave her two conditions: to switch to viola, and gain admission to Curtis, where he was
professor. She agreed, gained admission to Curtis, and moved to Philadelphia. Eventually, she
became Primrose’s teaching assistant in 1945, and when he retired became the head of the viola
and chamber music departments at Curtis in 1950.
She worked with Pablo Casals at the inaugural Prades Festival in the summer of 1950, and
became the violist of The Schneider Quartet, which performed all 83 Haydn Quartets over 21
concerts. She left Curtis in 1955 to focus on performance and went on tour, notably with the
Galimir Quartet and the Marlboro Music Festival. Concurrently, she became the first female
member of the NBC Orchestra. In 1960, she debuted in an acclaimed Carnegie Hall Recital
playing music of Bach and Brahms.
Her career refocused on teaching in the 1970’s, where she maintained professorships at the
Peabody Institute in Baltimore (1971) and the Manhattan School of Music (1980). She taught at
the Aspen Music Festival from 1979 – 1986. Among her students were Kim Kashkashian,
Jeffrey Irvine and Michelle LaCourse. She rejoined the faculty at Curtis in 1986 and Juilliard in
1987, where she split her time for the rest of her teaching career. In 1994, in recognition of her
accomplishments, she won an Artist Teacher Award from the American String Teachers
Association. Tuttle’s musical philosophy was holistic, but focused on alleviating tension, and
remaining physically relaxed, modeled after Primrose. “Coordination,” the name of her teaching
philosophy, had a lasting influence in string pedagogy. She retired from teaching in 2003, and
passed away in 2010.
 Bibliography

Bynog, David M. “Karen Tuttle (1920-2010).” Journal of the American Viola Society 27, no. 1
(Spring 2011): 11-13.
Dane, Matthew Anderson. “Coordinated effort: A study of Karen Tuttle’s influence on modern
viola teaching.” PhD diss., Rice University, 2002.
Dew, Robert. “In response to instinct: Karen Tuttle’s insights into the coordinated action – its
mechanisms, articulation, and prerequisites.” Journal of the American Viola Society 18,
no. 2 (Spring 2002): 51-54.
Ham, Ashley. “My Fair Lady: A student’s perspective on the Karen Tuttle coordination
seminar.” Journal of the American Viola Society 18, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 71-72.
Weinberger, Rozanna and Jonathan Fung. “Body and Soul: Teacher Karen Tuttle reveals how
she helps students play without pain.” Strings, December 12, 1998.
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