Dr. Jesus Alfonzo serves as a professor of music at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, where he teaches viola, chamber music, and string pedagogy. He also conducts the Viola Consort and leads the Viola Clinic. He is a member of the Bach Festival Orchestra in Winter Park, Florida, and has been a member of the Rios Reyna String Quartet since 1987. He received a diploma and post-graduate diploma from the Juilliard School of Music and a Master of Music and a Doctor in Musical Arts degree from Michigan State University. His viola teachers include José Francisco Del Castillo, Julia Adams, Margaret Pardee, Harry Shub, Robert Dan, Bronislaw Gimpel, and Rony Rogoff. He studied chamber music with Joseph Gingold, Felix Galimir, Jascha Brodsky, the Juilliard and the Amadeus string quartets. He has appeared with orchestras and performed recitals and chamber music concerts in Europe, South America, and the United States.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Dr. Alfonzo is a founding member of the El Sistema, the Venezuelan National System of Youth Orchestras, an opportunity that allowed him to develop his teaching and playing skills. In 1980 and 1981, he served as principal violist of the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra. Dr. Alfonzo became the principal violist of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra for sixteen years. During his career, he has collaborated with distinguished conductors and soloists, including Claudio Abbado, Gustavo Dudamel, Leonard Bernstein, Jose Antonio Abreu, Maxim Shostakovich, Kristoff Penderecki, Zubin Mehta, Serge Baudo, Carlos Chavez, Jerzy Semkov, Eduardo Mata, Claudio Arrau, Joseph Silverstein, Mstislav Rostropovich, Pinchas Zukerman, Yo-Yo Ma, Montserrat Caballe, Jean Pierre Rampal, Yehudi Menuhin and Henry Szeryng. He taught at the Conservatorio de Música Simon Bolivar in Venezuela, the University Institute of Musical Studies (IUDEM), and the Colegio Emil Friedman. His students have been accepted in distinguished conservatories and schools of music in the United States and Europe, as well as well-known European and American orchestras.

Dr. Alfonzo recorded The Johannes Brahms Viola Sonatas (1988) and Pipocas with the Rios Reyna String Quartet (1997), a CD set containing string quartet music by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Silvestre Revueltas, and Inocente Carreño. His publications include Soggetto Cavato I: La Historia mis Relatos de los Primeros Cinco Años de El Sistema (2015), Soggetto Cavato II: Mis Relatos en la Historia de El Sistema 1980-1984 (2018), and Viola Music by Latin American Composers: Catalogue of Works, which is also published by Sphinx Organization https://www.sphinxmusic.org/latin-american-viola-works.

Dr. Alfonzo is frequently invited to lecture at conferences and congresses in the United States and Latin America and teach a series of viola and string pedagogy master classes at El Sistema in Venezuela and Spain. In addition to his teaching duties and performance schedule, he maintains a private studio of distinguished students in Florida.