CONCERT PROGRAMME BIOGRAPHY

 

Jennifer Pike - violin

“…Britain’s foremost young fiddler: the 15 year old Jennifer Pike stepped on to the platform and delivered the prelude (and gavotte en rondeau) from Bach’s Third Partita with perfect poise and assurance, her instrument sounding clear and strong…” The Independent

In 2002, at the age of twelve, Jennifer Pike became the youngest ever winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, following her performance of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. Public recognition of her unfaltering success continued at the start of 2008 when Jennifer was honoured with The South Bank Show/The Times Breakthrough Award, in acknowledgement of the impact that she made throughout the arts during 2007. She was presented with the first international London Music Masters award in October 2009 in the Wigmore Hall.

Recently named as a BBC New Generation Artist for 2008-2010, Jennifer has already performed with the UK’s major orchestras and has given recitals around the UK, Europe, the Middle East and the USA. At the age of fifteen she made her BBC Proms début in the Royal Albert Hall and has since made recital débuts in London’s Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room to great critical acclaim. Past engagements include performances with London Mozart Players, City of London Sinfonia, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Gramophone Awards Ceremony and with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the Vienna Festival, televised throughout Europe.

In a new and exciting development in her career, Pike has recently signed a three year record deal with Chandos. Her first recording for the label will be the Rozsa Violin Concerto and Variations on a Hungarian Peasant Song, recorded in the summer of 2009 with the BBC Philharmonic. In 2010 she will record a disc of French recital repertoire with the renowned pianist Martin Roscoe.

Jennifer Pike’s 2009/10 season includes concerto engagements with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Hallé, BBC Philharmonic, Northern Sinfonia, BBC Symphony and the Philharmonia, in addition to recitals at the Wigmore Hall, London; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; and for the BBC in Aberdeen and Manchester. She will make her Japanese debut in the autumn of 2010, in recital for the Musashino Foundation and then with the Nagoya Philharmonic, playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with Martyn Brabbins.

During the 2008/9 season, Pike made debuts with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, City of Birmingham Symphony, Auckland Philharmonia, Tasmanian Symphony and Brussels Philharmonic, as well as return engagements with the BBC Scottish Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, Tampere Philharmonic and Manchester Camerata. She also performed twice in the 2009 BBC Proms Season, firstly with the BBC Philharmonic in the Royal Albert Hall and later in the Cadogan Hall. She also made a guest appearance in the Last Night of the Proms.

In 1998 she became a day pupil at Chetham’s School of Music, and at the age of 16 she was awarded a postgraduate scholarship, with the generous support of the Leathersellers' Company, to study with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, winning the Derek Butler London Prize in 2007. In 2005 and 2007 she won the prestigious Manoug Parikian Award administered by the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund. She is also grateful for the support of the Philharmonia/Martin Scholarship Fund. In 2009 she gained a place to continue her studies at Oxford University.

She is playing a violin made by Matteo Goffriller in 1708, which is currently made available to her by the Stradivari Trust established by Nigel Brown. For more information on helping the Trust raise the funds needed to secure the instrument for Jennifer’s long-term use please contact Emily Smith at instrument.schemes@gmail.com

Reviews  

Her playing has led to her being hailed as one of Britain’s brightest musical prodigies for a generation. I heard in Jennifer a remarkable understanding of music far beyond her years. It was really quite astonishing.  I felt it was like listening to a 12-year-old Menuhin.  Daily Mail, May 2002

The most rewarding part of the whole five-hour venture came in the first five minutes, when 15-year-old Jennifer Pike played a pair of movements from Bach's solo Partita No.3 with great subtlety and composure  The Daily Telegraph, August 2005 (BBC Proms)

Equipped at 16 with phenomenal tuning, pace, control of timbre and range of dynamics, she brought the house down with Saint-Saëns' Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso The Independent, March 2006 (Barbican Hall)

Promoters: please note that no modification of this programme note may be carried out without the prior consent of the artist. Please contact jeremypike@lineone.net for further information or email james.leakey@hazardchase.co.uk for the latest biography and a hi-res photograph.

 

For additional biographical details click here (not for publication)