“A Jazz musician is supposed to find his voice, find his niche & do his thing.”
Dr. Steffen Zeichner is a versatile violinist who actively performs and records within the genres of Jazz, Classical, Rock, Klezmer, and Pop.
A native of Gainesville, Florida, Steffen plays with several ensembles and orchestras throughout the South Florida area where he is based. He is the leader of 5 String Swing, a lively jazz violin driven band that regularly presents shows of Jazz, Swing, and American Standards.
Steffen is a passionate educator with a focus on developing the creative potential of string players, particularly through exposing them to musical genres outside of the classical world and through helping students to develop improvisational and real-world performance skills. He has an international studio of private violin students learning various styles of music with him both in-person in Miami, Florida and virtually, and is the adjunct Lecturer of Jazz Violin at Florida International University.
Throughout his career Steffen has shared the stage with many top artists including Chick Corea, Gloria Estefan, Cyrille Aimee, Nestor Torres, Kenny Loggins, Ben Folds, Maria Schneider, Terence Blanchard, and George Benson, with whom he was featured as the violin soloist and concertmaster for Benson's 2013 album, "Inspiration".
Steffen is also an experienced studio musician, credited on Grammy winning and nominated CD’s, multiple Downbeat awarded recordings, and many other albums and commercial releases within a myriad of styles.
He holds a BM in Violin Performance from Indiana University (studying with Henryk Kowalski, Federico Agostini, Jorja Fleezanis, David Baker) and a Masters and Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Miami (Glenn Basham, Charles Castleman, Gary Lindsay, Stephen Guerra Jr). Steffen has also studied jazz violin with acclaimed jazz violinists John Blake Jr, Mark O'Connor, and Jeremy Cohen.