Artist Biography
Jennifer Orchard, Violin
As winner of multiple awards, recipient of top honors at numerous competitions, and former violinist with the internationally-renowned Lark Quartet, native Canadian Jennifer Orchard has repeatedly brought dynamic and highly acclaimed performances to audiences worldwide. As a chamber musician, Ms. Orchard has worked to expand the string quartet repertoire (including co-commissioning the 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning composition "musica instrumentalis" by Aaron Jay Kernis) and to bring music to some unusual audiences. The quartet's three year residency at Ohio University was made into a documentary that aired on PBS and included their diverse educational activities. During Ms. Orchard's eight years with the Lark Quartet she toured Germany, Great Britain, Austria, France, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand, Mexico, Canada and the United States (including performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, St. Paul's Ordway Theater, and New York's Avery Fisher and Carnegie Halls), all to overwhelming praise from critics and audiences alike. As a soloist, Ms. Orchard has performed both the classic and the cutting-edge with orchestras across Canada and the US, and continually participates in the world's finest music festivals, including the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont.
Ms. Orchard's extensive chamber music discography on Arabesque Records includes an all-Schnittke CD which has been praised by San Francisco Chronicle, Stereophile, and Gramophone, as well as the quartets and chamber music of Alexander Borodin, Arnold Schoenberg, Alexander Zemlinsky, Robert Schumann, Amy Beach, Aaron Jay Kernis, and composer/satirist Peter Schickele.
Ms. Orchard completed her undergraduate education at the Curtis Institute of Music with Szymon Goldberg and her master's degree from the Juilliard School with Robert Mann. Currently residing in Pittsburgh, PA, Ms. Orchard is the assistant principal second of the Pittsburgh Symphony.