NEW YORK - Zvi Zeitlin, an internationally renowned violinist known for interpreting the work of contemporary composers, died on Wednesday in Rochester, N.Y. He was 90.

His death was announced by the Eastman School of Music. At his death, Mr. Zeitlin was distinguished professor of violin at the school, which is part of the University of Rochester.

Mr. Zeitlin, who had announced his intention to retire from Eastman this summer, had taught there since 1967.

Simultaneously maintaining an active concert schedule, he was for decades part of a triumvirate of sought-after violin pedagogues - the others were Dorothy DeLay of the Juilliard School and Josef Gingold of Indiana University - teaching at major US conservatories.

Robust of constitution, Mr. Zeitlin, who performed on a 1734 Guarneri del Gesu, continued touring until he was well into his 80s. At Eastman, he gave his last major recital in February, two days before his 90th birthday, in a program of Schubert.

Over the years Mr. Zeitlin appeared as a soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras, under conductors including Pierre Boulez, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, and Antal Dorati.

He was closely associated with the work of modernist composers like Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss and George Rochberg; he gave the world premieres of pieces written for him by Gunther Schuller, Paul Ben-Haim and Carlos Surinach, among others.

Mr. Zeitlin was known in particular as an interpreter of Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal, fiendishly difficult Violin Concerto; his recording of the work for Deutsche Grammophon, with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra under Rafael Kubelik, is highly regarded.

Zvi Zeitlin was born on Feb. 21, 1922, in the village of Dubrovna, then in the Soviet Union and now in Belarus, and was reared in Palestine.