Lydia Umlauf

Lydia Umlauf, a native of Indiana, joined the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 2014.  Lydia received her bachelor’s degree at Indiana University’s Jacob School of Music studying with Alexander Kerr. She is an alumnus of the Music Institute of Chicago’s Academy program for gifted pre-college musicians where she studied with Desiree Ruhstrat and prior to her studies in Chicago, Lydia took violin lessons from Tamara Ringas in Indiana.

Passionate about traveling in all its forms, she has attended the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival orchestral academy in Germany, the New York String Orchestra Seminar at Carnegie Hall, and the Britt Festival under the direction of Teddy Abrams. Lydia has also been a member of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyoming since 2019. Before joining the Dallas Symphony, she was a substitute with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and was offered the position of interim assistant concertmaster with the Louisville Symphony Orchestra.

As a result of both her love of classical music and her love of culture and night life, Lydia has founded a classical chamber music series called Mozart in the Bar where small chamber groups play concerts semi-regularly all around the Dallas bar scene. In addition to violin, Lydia is an accomplished viola player and enjoys playing chamber music with an alto clef as much as she can.

When not in rehearsal, practicing, or brandishing a viola, you can often find Lydia dancing, talking loudly, traveling, playing Frisbee, and maybe all four at once.

Lydia plays a violin made by Bisiach in 1895 on generous loan from Nathan Olson.