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Perfection from Pike. The high spot of the evening was Jennifer Pike’s performance of the Bruch violin concerto. She played it as if it had been composed yesterday, fiery, powerful playing in the prelude and a sense of deepening intensity in the adagio, followed by a firework finale. Her tone was matchless and her technique magnificent: but the exciting thing was the individual musical mind she brought to it. With Boyd’s help [the conductor], she made a hackneyed piece sound fresh – and for a 14-year-old, that points to an extraordinary future.

Robert Beale, Manchester Evening News

Manchester Camerata
16 February 2004

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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. . we had been privileged witnesses to a remarkable performance.

John Sidgwick, Culture Kiosque

Saint-Saens Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, BBC SO
30 November 2006

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From the outset, the beautiful melody being sustained with a veteran’s ease, her playing had astonishing tonal variety, was always firm and full-bodied whether in the instrument’s lower, middle or higher registers and everything accurately pitched on a sixpence. It was admirable, even frightening, for one so young and she knew all about interpretation.

Bernard Lee, Sheffield Evening Telegraph

Prokofiev Violin Concerto No 1, cond. Mark Elder
4 July 2003

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Pike captivated the Symphony Hall audience with a brilliant rendition of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. Every note of this perennial favourite was spot on, and played with feeling.

Birmingham Post

CBSO
30 November 2007

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…this was the gem as young violinist Jennifer Pike, just coming into her late teens, gave a warm performance of Bruch’s First Violin Concerto that was richly spacious and unashamedly expressive with some lovely, mature playing in the slow movement….here is yet another young violinist superbly equipped for a golden future.

Michael Tumelty, The Herald

BBC Scottish SO
29 October 2007