John Rine Zabanal

Full Biography

John Rine Zabanal is the principal second violinist at the Fredericksburg Symphony Orchestra, to which he has been a member since the first season. Outside of FSO, he is an instructional systems specialist in K–12 music at the Department of Defense Education Activity where he supports music programs at schools on U.S. military bases worldwide and a conductor and coach for the Florida State University Summer Music Camps. His previous positions include assistant professor and director of string music education at VanderCook College of Music, adjunct professor in music education at Florida State University, and orchestra teacher at Riverbend High School, Ni River Middle School, and Freedom Middle School in Spotsylvania County Public Schools. He has been invited to clinic and adjudicate festivals, most notably the American String Teacher Association (ASTA) National Orchestra Festival, and conduct honor orchestras in Japan and across the United States.

As an active pedagogue and researcher, Dr. Zabanal has presented at national conferences for ASTA, the National Association for Music Education, the International Research Symposium for Talent Education with the Suzuki Association of the Americas, as well as several state music education conferences. He published articles in American String Teacher, Contributions to Music Education, String Research Journal, and Update: Applications for Music Research, and has served on the editorial board for those journals. He was a recipient of the 2024 ASTA Early Career String Researcher Award for making contributions to research and teaching in string education.

Dr. Zabanal holds music education degrees from The Ohio State University (BME) and Florida State University (MME, Ph.D.).