A risk-taking, high-octane player.

—The Strad

About This Performance

FREE hour-long concert presented at the Mission District Branch of the San Francisco Community Music Center.

SF Community Music Center
544 Capp Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415.647.6015
sfcmc.org

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artist biography

Violinist Jennifer Koh mesmerizes audiences with the sheer intensity of her playing. As a virtuoso whose natural flair is matched with a probing intellect, Ms. Koh is committed to exploring connections between the pieces she plays, searching for similarities of voice between different composers, as well as within the works of a single composer.  

Ms. Koh’s engagements in the 2009-10 season include return guest appearances with the New Jersey Symphony, National Symphony of Washington, D.C., and the New World Symphony, among other ensembles. Abroad she makes her PROMS debut with the BBC Symphony directed by Jĭri Bĕlohlávek in a world premiere performance of Augusta Read Thomas’s violin concerto Juggler in Paradise, and is also heard with the BBC (Scottish) Orchestra. A new concerto written and commissioned for Ms. Koh by Klas Torstenssans will be premiered in Amsterdam with the NIEUW Ensemble in May 2010. In recital Ms. Koh also plays the violin sonatas and partitas of J.S. Bach at New York’s Miller Theatre as part of the Bach and Beyond project commemorating the 325th anniversary of Bach’s birth. Ms. Koh’s other recital engagements include all-Mozart and Schubert programs with pianist Shai Wosner and a duo program with cellist Anssi Kartunnen in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. (Kennedy Center), New York (Miller Theatre and the Baryshnikov Arts Center), San Francisco (Herbst Theatre), Oberlin College (OH), Houston (Da Camera Society), and Minneapolis (Schubert Club).

Since she came to international attention in 1994 as winner of the top prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition, Ms. Koh has gone on to perform as guest soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, National Symphony of Washington, D.C., the Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre, the Moscow Radio Symphony, and the Helsinki and Czech Philharmonics. A prolific recitalist, Ms. Koh appears frequently at major music centers and festivals including Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, The Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Marlboro, Wolf Trap, Spoleto, and The Festival International de Lanaudiere in Canada. She regularly records for the American Cedille label and her most recently released recording String Poetic was nominated for a Grammy in 2009.

Born in Chicago of Korean parents, Ms. Koh currently resides in New York City. Ms. Koh is a graduate of Oberlin College and an alumna of the Curtis Institute, where she worked extensively with Jaime Laredo and Felix Galimir.