Lyn Ritz is an associate professor of music at Walla Walla College where she teaches strings and theory and is a chamber music coach, a position she has held since 2003. She has served as concertmaster of the Walla Walla Symphony since 2005. A native of Rochester, NY, Ritz taught public school music in New York State after completing her master's degree in music education from Penn State University in 1975. In 1991 she earned a D.M.A. in violin from the University of Kentucky where she studied with Daniel Mason, performed in the Lexington Philharmonic, and was a five-year member of the Niles String Quartet.

Ritz has previously taught at the University of Texas Pan-American in Edinburg, Texas, where she was concertmaster of the Valley Symphony Orchestra and at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, where she was also a member of the Bresquin Trio. She joined the University of Dayton faculty in 1995, where for eight years she taught violin, viola, chamber music, string pedagogy, and aural skills, in addition to performing in Tritonus, a string trio.

Ritz has been a participant in several workshops, including the Nova Scotia Music Festival in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1992, and the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School, Blue Hill, Maine in 1989. She has been a member in the Syracuse (NY) and Putnam (NY) Symphony Orchestras, and the Ridgefield (CT) Symphony and is presently in the Walla Walla Symphony. She is an active solo and chamber music performer.

Ritz authored A Compendium of Left Hand Fingerings for Violin and Viola in 1994, composed three sacred songs for voice and piano, and has made several violin and piano hymn arrangements. She is a frequent soloist.

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