Travis Maril
Lecturer
Coordinator of Stringed Instruments
Undergraduate Advisor
SDSU
Bio
Travis Maril is String Coordinator, Viola Faculty and Undergraduate Advisor at San Diego
State University's School of Music and Dance, where he also co-founded and coordinates
the SDSU String Academy, a pre-college program for young string students.
As a chamber musician, Travis was a top-prize winner at the Fischoff National Chamber
Music Competition, and the 2021 winner Nathan Cole’s Violympics, an online competition
for violinists and violists judged by James Ehnnes, Augustin Hadelich, Gil Shaham and
others. Travis has performed with members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln
Center, the Miro Quartet, and principal players of the Cleveland Orchestra, LA Phil, Dallas,
San Diego and Pittsburgh Symphonies. Festival appearances include La Jolla Music
Society’s SummerFest, Schleswig-Holstein, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival and Mainly
Mozart.
As a classical violist, Travis has recorded contemporary works for Naxos and New World
Records, and plays as violist with Camarada, a chamber ensemble based in San Diego.
Outside the classical realm, he has performed and recorded with the jazz group the Danny
Green Trio, the chamber folk band The Tree Ring and a variety of other independent
artists. He is featured in a number of film and television scores written by Joel P. West,
including Just Mercy, starring Brie Larson, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx.
A passionate teacher, in 2021 Travis was awarded Outstanding SDSU Music Faculty
Member. Curious about the theory of teaching, Travis explores string pedagogy topics on
his blog, String Theory, which in its first year had over twenty-eight thousand visits. Since
2021 he has worked with students from all over the world through his online program,
String Gym.
Travis was a Trustee Scholar and Outstanding Graduate at the University of Southern
California, where he studied with Donal McInnes and Ralph Fielding, and earned his
Masters Degree at Rice University’s Shepherd School, working with Karen Ritscher.
Additional teachers include James Dunham, Jeff Irvine, Che-Yen Chen, Nathan Cole and
Susan Dubois.