Fidelis Zitterbart Jr. was born April 9, 1845, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Fidelis and Frederica Zitterbart. His father was well-known as a violinist, conductor, and composer who came to the United States as a member of a troupe of instrumentalists from Prague. When this troupe was disbanded in 1837 without completing its tour, Fidelis Sr. decided to settle in Pittsburgh. The family occupied a small house on 10th Street in Pittsburgh’s South Side neighborhood, where Fidelis Jr. was born. His father was his first music teacher. At age 9, Fidelis Jr. became one of the violinists in his father’s orchestra, and at this time began to put his musical ideas on paper.

Fidelis Jr. worked with local teachers until the age of 16, at which point he traveled to Europe to continue his studies. In Dresden he studied violin with François Schubert (1808–1878) and theory and keyboard lessons with Julius Rühlmann (1816–1877). Fidelis returned to the United States in 1863 and stayed in New York, where he was a member of several premier musical organizations. He played in his father’s New York Theatre Orchestra and in the Brooklyn and New York Philharmonic societies, and he served as first violinist with the Theodore Thomas Orchestra and concertmaster of the Strakosch Opera orchestra.

In 1873, Fidelis returned to Pittsburgh as an instructor at Andrew Williams’s American Conservatory of Music, located at 41 Fifth Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh. When the school closed, Zitterbart opened his own school in the same location, acting as teacher, performer, and composer. He lived in many places in Pittsburgh, including in the Hill District on Crawford and Reed Streets from 1874 to 1877, in Uptown on Pride and Marion Streets from 1878 to 1911, in Shadyside on Summerlea Street from 1912 to 1913, and finally in Highland Park on North Highland Avenue in 1915. He passed away on August 30, 1915, and was interred in Allegheny Cemetery.