Biography

Jennifer graduated with an MA from the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, with Professor Christoph Schiller, where she was generously supported by a Leverhulme Study Abroad Scholarship. She completed her BMus at the Royal College of Music (RCM) with Professor Andriy Viytovych, from which she graduated with First Class Honours. Jenny has made concerto appearances in Guildford, London and Guernsey with the Guildford YMCA Orchestra and the Orchestra of Situation Opera. She has received numerous lessons from Nobuko Imai, Hariolf Schlichtig and Lawrence Power, and has taken part in masterclasses with Edward Vandespaar, Paul Silverthorne and Gilad Karni. She is a graduate from Tibor Varga Sion masterclasses, Ticino Musica and the Academia Internacional de Musica.

Jenny’s orchestral experiences include playing with the European Union Youth Orchestra under Claus Peter Flor and Vladimir Ashkenazy, a side-by-side scheme with the English National Opera with whom she then performed the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah on BBC Radio 3, and in the LSO String Academy 2010 where she was able to play alongside, and receive coaching from, all the principal players of the LSO. She has also been principal viola in the Royal College of Music’s Opera Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra and Sinfonietta, the London Irish Symphony Orchestra, Surrey Mahler Orchestra and Surrey County Youth Orchestra.

Jenny is an active chamber musician, and has performed in the Wigmore Hall as part of the RCM String Showcase concert 2010, Cadogan Hall in one of the concerts of the ‘Rising Stars’ chamber music series, and on Radio Suisse with a recital of duos and trios by Marteau and Beethoven. Whilst studying in London she performed extensively with the Eilon String Quartet including concerts at the Vienna City of Dreams Festival, Exhibition Road Music Day and the Leicester Music Festival where they played with Nicholas Daniel, Natalie Clein, Priya Mitchell and Guy Ben-Ziony. Jenny has received chamber music coaching from Daniel Philips, Mark Messenger, the Chilingirian Quartet, the Sacconi Quartet, the Wihan Quartet, Patricia Rozario and Julian Jacobson.

Education

Zürcher Hochschule der Künste
Zurich, Switzerland

Royal College of Music
London, UK

Quickfire Questions

What is your earliest musical memory?
My earliest musical memory is aged around 8 or 9 when I was taken by my father to an LSO children’s day event. I remember enjoying it so fully, as I could already read music and had been playing the viola for a couple of years by then, so instead of having just a fun day out, I got a lot more out of it, and began to realise that I had music in me. I remember thinking that it was amazing that these ‘grown-ups’ could be playing music for a living…and wondering if perhaps I could do that.

If you weren’t a musician what would you be?

When I was applying for music colleges I was attending a sixth form college which didn’t really even have a proper music department, and so was persuaded by the careers department to choose another subject as a back-up plan (I don’t think they were sure if music college was a proper choice). The only other thing I could think of doing was Psychology, which I had developed a great interest in during my A-levels.