LAUREN BURNS HODGES currently serves as Lecturer in Viola at Valdosta State University, Principal Viola of the Valdosta Symphony, violist of the Azalea String Quartet, and Director of the South Georgia String Project, winner of the 2011 NSPC String Project of the Year.  During the summers, she is a faculty artist at the Premier Orchestral Institute in Jackson, MS and the Schlern International Music Festival in South Tyrol, Italy.  Recent orchestral, chamber and solo performances have taken her to Périgueux (France), Graz and Bad Leonfelden (Austria), Havana (Cuba), and seventeen cities in China.

Dr. Hodges was a founding member of the Hausmann Quartet, performing throughout the United States on series such as Lyrica Boston, Lyrica New Jersey, and the International Music Foundation in Chicago under Marilyn Gilbert Artist Management.  In 2007, the Hausmann Quartet was chosen as a showcasing ensemble at the Chamber Music America National Conference in Times Square, New York.  As a member of the quartet, Dr. Hodges completed two years as a young artist-in-residence on the Lyrica Boston Chamber Music Series and two years at Kent State University in Ohio as a teaching assistant to the Miami String Quartet.  She was a fellow at Norfolk and Kent/Blossom summer music festivals, coaching with Claude Frank and members of the Keller, Tokyo, and Vermeer quartets.

As an orchestral player, Dr. Hodges has performed in the Eastern Music Festival Faculty Orchestra as well as a summer concert in the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom.  She has been Principal Viola in the Ohio Valley Symphony, Lyrica Chamber Orchestra (Boston and NJ) and in the Manchester Chamber Music (VT) and Texas Music Festival orchestras.  She has also performed as section viola in the Albany, Mobile, Tuscaloosa, Mansfield, Lancaster, New Hampshire, Brockton, Augusta, and South Carolina Philharmonic orchestras and in the AIMS – Graz, Aspen and Brevard Music Festival orchestras.

Winner of the Narramore Fellowship, Dr. Hodges received her doctoral degree from the University of Alabama upon completion of her document entitled Coordinated Action in String Playing: A Comparative Study of the Teachings of Paul Rolland and Karen Tuttle.  She earned a master’s degree at Peabody Conservatory as a winner of the prestigious Jacob K. Javits national fellowship and her bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from the University of South Carolina.  Primary viola teachers include Daniel Sweaney, Victoria Chiang, and Frits DeJonge.  Her pedagogy training is from Rebecca Henry (Peabody Preparatory Division) and Suzuki certification from teacher trainer Mary Cay Neal.