Jennifer Pike recent highlights

Jennifer gave a full evening recital in London's Purcell Room on 6 December 2006, soon after her 17th birthday, performing sonatas by Mozart, Debussy and Beethoven (the Kreutzer Sonata) to a highly enthusiastic audience. Read a review in Culture Kiosque which sums up the concert as "wonderful music making...an evening to remember indeed", and of the Beethoven: "I am writing these words two days after the performance and I am still under its spell as I recall passage after passage which was executed with a sure sense of balance and rightness...There is not room here to go into the details of the many marvels of Miss Pike's interpretation.....I cannot recall hearing a more incisive and dramatic performance".

5 Star Review in the Times for Jennifer's performance in the Homage to Menuhin concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the Barbican, March 2006: " Each item here deserved its own star-rating, from the indisputable nul points of [name of British composer omitted!!]'s abysmal new piece, to the five of Jennifer Pike’s Saint-Säens Introduction and Rondo capriccioso.....Pike’s Saint-Säens at last revealed a truly engaging musicality, and a determination to make even a shamelessly virtuosic showpiece very much her own. Her playing had a nimble thoughtfulness about it, and a shy but assured sense of style."

The Independent also singled out her performance in the concert, referring to her as "the most simply spectacular of the players ... 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 Strad magazine describes how "the 16 year old Pike showed how she could hold an audience spellbound. It was fitting that her perfectly tuned, maturely paced performance (which didn't make heavy weather of its virtuosity) immediately preceded Tasmin's Little's Elgar Violin Concerto: if Little has a logical successor, then Pike surely is it."

Culture Kiosque quite simply summed it up as follows: "an entrancing performance of the Introduction and Rondo capriccioso Op. 28 by Camille Saint-Saëns. It had everything. Dazzling virtuosity enhanced at every turn by inspired musicality."

Jennifer performed Saint-Saens' Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso and Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending live on Radio 2's Friday Night is Music Night in March 2006, repeated in the Autumn on Radio 2. This was with the BBC Concert Orchestra from London's Cadogan Hall. She also performed Bach's Double Concerto alongside Chloe Hanslip in three concerts with the European Union Chamber Orchestra in April 2006, in Reading, Carlisle and Llandudno to great acclaim. Her performance of Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending given with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales last year was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in September 2006. She has been invited to perform this work with them again in 2008.

Jennifer gave her stunning evening debut recital with Gordon Back on Tuesday November 15th 2005 in London's Wigmore Hall. The programme included sonatas by Beethoven (op30/3), Ravel and Prokofiev (F minor) rounded off with music by Kreisler. The review in the Daily Telegraph summed up the feelings of all present, that her "growing maturity as an artist was immediately apparent" and highly praised her performances of all the works in the programme.

Read an review of this concert in Culture Kiosk and an interview with Jennifer (Registration may be required). John Sidgwick describes how "from the opening bars of the Beethoven Sonata, we were hooked. This was music-making the like of which one rarely comes across....Above all, time after time, she displays turns of phrase and expression that simply cannot be taught. They are all there within her. At the end of the recital, my wife and I made our way home.....in the complete knowledge that we had been privileged witnesses to a remarkable performance."

Jennifer made a sensational debut appearance in the 2005 BBC Proms season in the Royal Albert Hall. She was be one of the youngest ever violinists to perform in this celebrated festival, opening the special Violins Day at 2.30pm on Saturday July 30 with a beautiful solo performance of music by Bach, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, which was acclaimed by audience and critics alike:

“There could be no better way to open a three-concert day devoted to the violin than a solo from 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 2 August 2005

“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 1 August 2005

"The real zing was located elsewhere: in 15-year-old Jennifer Pike, confidently launching the afternoon Prom with her solo Bach." The Times 2 August 2005

This debut follows two previous performances in the BBC Proms in the Park series (firstly in Hyde Park in 2002 at the age of twelve and in the 2004 Last Night of the Proms from Manchester Cathedral Gardens).

Jennifer wins the prestigious Manoug Parikian Award. Jennifer was unanimously voted winner of this prestigious prize administered by the Musicians Benevolent Fund in November 2005.

Jennifer was a Finalist in the 2006 Eurovision Competition for Young Musicians. As the winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2002 Jennifer was nominated to represent the UK in this year's Eurovision Competition, featuring top prizewinners from across Europe. Jennifer was the only violinist to reach the finals and one of only a handful of British musicians ever to reach this last stage of the competition. Her semifinal performance was acclaimed by the jury, who described her as a "brilliant young violinist". She gave a memorable performance of the slow movement of Mozart's Violin Concerto no 3 in the open air final with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra as part of the Vienna Mozart Year celebrations, broadcast live across Europe.