Kathleen Tesar, EdD

Kathleen Tesar has a wide range of experience as both a performer and an administrator in higher education. Most recently she served as the Associate Dean for Enrollment Management at The Juilliard School, where she oversaw the offices of Admissions. Her responsibilities included recruiting and enrolling the incoming class each year, overseeing the prescreening and audition processes, chairing the Admissions Committee, and serving on the Scholarship Committee. Having retired from administration, Dr. Tesar now devotes her time to advising students through College Prep for Musicians and training music admissions professionals.

Her first job after completing her Bachelor of Music degree at the Eastman School of Music was as a violinist in the Orquesta Sinfonica Municipal in Caracas, Venezuela. Moving back to the US, Dr. Tesar spent many years as assistant principal second violin in the Alabama Symphony. As a violin teacher, Dr. Tesar was on the faculty of the Alabama School of Fine Arts and Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina, and maintained a small private studio in Birmingham.

Moving into administration, Dr. Tesar was Director of Admissions first at Eastern Music Festival and then at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester. She worked at the Colburn School for twelve years, her last title as Associate Dean of the Conservatory, and from there went to the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music as Coordinator of the 2016 Piatigorsky International Cello Festival.

In addition to these orchestral and administrative positions, Dr. Tesar was a Fellow at Tanglewood Music Center, and spent several summers as a member of the orchestra at the Spoleto Festival in South Carolina and Italy. She earned her Master of Music degree from the Catholic University of America, and her Doctor of Education (EdD) in Organizational Change and Leadership from the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education. Dr. Tesar’s dissertation focused on identifying and recruiting underrepresented students in pre-college classical music programs.