Joseph Kauffman was born in Oakland, California in 1986, and began studying the violin when he was five. He studied with Dejin Sun, and later with Yayoi Numazawa of the Philadelphia Orchestra. During the summers, Joseph participated in international music festivals such as Interlochen, Luzerne, Music in the Mountains, Kinhaven, and Recontres Musicales International des Graves where he worked with many of the finest musicians and teachers.
Joseph graduated from the Pennsylvania State University in 2008 with a BM in Violin Performance, and was honored to receive the Creative Achievement Award given out to one exceptional student. He studied there with James Lyon and Max Zorin on a music scholarship, and was awarded Jury Recognition in his first year. Joseph was a winner of the Beene, Kroulik, and Brewster competitions in Pennsylvania, and in 2008, received first prize in the PSU Philharmonic Concerto Competition where he performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto. He returns to Penn State every summer for the Penn’s Woods Music Festival under the direction of Maestro Gerardo Edelstein. Joseph founded "Valens” Piano Quartet which earned 2st Prize in the MTNA Chamber Music Competition.
Kauffman was accepted into the class of Professor Eduard Schmieder in 2008 where he began his studies in the master’s degree program at Temple University. He served as concertmaster for Temple’s performances of Puccini’s La Boheme, Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, as well as several other performances by the Temple Orchestra. This summer Kauffman will solo with the Wayne Pennsylvania Chamber Orchestra, and his newly formed piano trio will premiere a new work for violin, piano, and horn commissioned for his trio.
