KURT SASSMANNSHAUS holds the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair for Classical Violin at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). His students perform as soloists, hold appointments at major conservatories and are leaders in major orchestras around the world. They have won many prizes in major competitions, including Tchaikovsky, Naumburg, and the China National Competition. He frequently judges international violin competitions.

In the summer Sassmannshaus teaches at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine.

Sassmannshaus started the Starling Preparatory String Project in 1987 in Cincinnati as a training ground for exceptional young string talent.

His pioneering violin teaching website www.violinmasterclass.com was published in 2004. He expands the pedagogic material available to young students with new editions in Bärenreiter’s Sassmannshaus Tradition.

His first teachers were his father Egon Sassmannshaus, Gert Hoelscher, and Conrad von der Goltz in Würzburg, Germany. He studied in Cologne with Igor Ozim and at New York’s Juilliard School with Dorothy DeLay. Sassmannshaus taught for many years in close association with Dorothy DeLay both in Cincinnati and at the Aspen Music Festival and School.