Lea Fetterman lives and works as a freelance violinist, conductor, and teacher in the Pacific Northwest. Alongside her music making, she arranges and composes music for a variety of ensembles and genres, including folk, singer/songwriter, alternative, ambient, and classical. Recently, Ms. Fetterman published her debut book Innocent Skin, a poetry collection now available at Barnes & Noble.

​

Currently, Ms. Fetterman performs with many regional orchestras and operas, including the Northwest Sinfonietta, North Corner Chamber Orchestra, Yakima Symphony, Symphony Tacoma, Seattle Collaborative Orchestra, and more. Beyond Washington's borders, she has also played in Oregon, Idaho, California, and Alaska. She is a violinist for Puget Sound Strings, and coaches sectionals and chamber music for many local youth and community orchestras, schools, and Seattle JazzED. In previous years, Ms. Fetterman served as concertmaster for the Sammamish Symphony and associate concertmaster for the Seattle Philharmonic and Pacific Northwest Opera. Beyond classical music, Ms. Fetterman has performed with artists and bands such as Sera Cahoone, Andrew Joslyn & The Passenger String Quartet, The Sam Chase & The Untraditional, Henry Mansfield, and Katie Kuffel. 

​

In May 2021, Ms. Fetterman completed her Master's in Music in Violin Performance at the University of Victoria, BC. She studied with Ann Elliott-Goldschmid, first violinist of the Lafayette String Quartet. Ms. Fetterman graduated from Western Washington University with a Bachelor of Music in Music Education in December 2017, Magna Cum Laude. 

​

In the summer of 2023, Ms. Fetterman performed as a first violinist for the McCall MusicFest in McCall, Idaho. In 2022, she was a first violinist for the Siletz Bay Music Festival, and a conducting associate at the Pacific Northwest Conducting Institute on Whidbey Island, under the instruction of Diane Wittry and Anna Edwards. She also participated in Quartet Fest West at the University of Victoria 2022-23. She spent the summers of 2020-21 attending the UW Chamber Music Institute and 2016-18 at Round Top Festival Institute in Round Top, Texas. At Round Top, she played in the orchestra, her own chamber groups, and coached and conducted several other ensembles. 

​

Ms. Fetterman grew up on Bainbridge Island, Washington, and began playing the violin when she was eight years old. She joined the Bainbridge Symphony Orchestra in 2008 and played with them until she graduated from high school in 2013. She also performed with Ovation! Musical Theater Bainbridge for her last few years of high school as concertmaster, and played with the Bainbridge Island Youth Orchestras 2002-2013. Throughout her childhood, Ms. Fetterman played instruments from nearly every family: violin, cello, trombone, euphonium, clarinet, piano, and marimba. This affinity with learning a diverse range of instruments and her desire to become an orchestral conductor drove her to complete her undergrad in music education. Ms. Fetterman has dedicated her work and livelihood to the violin, conducting, and teaching, but still experiments with other instruments in her improvisations and compositions.