Jennifer Pike
Violin

In 2002, at the age of only twelve, Jennifer Pike won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, following her celebrated performance of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. At the same age she won fourth prize in the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition. Public recognition of her unfaltering success continued at the start of 2008 when she was honoured with the Times Breakthrough Award at the South Bank Show Awards in recognition of the impact she has made across the arts.

She has appeared as soloist with major orchestras and given recitals around the UK, Europe, the Middle East and the USA. She was invited to play Saint-Saëns’ Havanaise with the Hallé Orchestra when she was eleven. The following year she performed with the BBC Philharmonic in the BBC Proms in Hyde Park, and in 2004 she played with the Hallé in the Last Night of the Proms in Manchester, both broadcast live on BBC television.

At the age of fifteen she made her BBC Proms début in the Royal Albert Hall, and since then she has made her evening recital débuts in London’s Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room, all to great critical acclaim.

Last year she played the Sibelius Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Mozart’s Concerto No 5 with the Ulster Orchestra and Bruch’s First Concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in concerts recorded for Radio 3. She performed Mozart’s Concerto No 3 with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Sibelius with the Tampere Philharmonic in Finland and London’s Cadogan Hall, and celebrated her 18th birthday with an evening recital in the Wigmore Hall. She has also performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Mozart Players, City of London Sinfonia, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, Liverpool Philharmonic, London Festival and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, playing concertos by Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Bruch, and Prokofiev.

Future plans include the Mendelssohn with the CBSO, RPO and the Brussels Philharmonic, the Sibelius with the Philharmonia, The Lark Ascending with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, a series of broadcast recitals and the première and recording of Andrew Schultz’s Violin Concerto with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

At the age of 16 she was awarded a postgraduate scholarship 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 MBF Manoug Parikian Award. She is also grateful for the support of the Philharmonia/Martin Scholarship Fund.

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.

/www.jenniferpike.com