Instructor
Violin; Co-Director, Chamber Orchestra

Music

Violinist, educator, and conductor Jeri Jorgensen is fascinated with finding musical freedom within structure.  A seasoned performer of music from all eras, she is especially drawn to creating a stimulating audience experience through the nuances, subtleties and constraints of the classical style period, and on the same program contrasting Beethoven, Mozart or Schubert with works from the early 20th century that break past traditional harmonies and form.

Entranced after hearing a classical orchestra performance on period instruments, Jeri has become an expert practitioner of classical performance practice on the subtly different instruments for which the music was originally composed.   With her duo partner, pianist Cullan Bryant, Jeri has presented classical period historical performances at the National Music Museum (Vermillion, SD), the Frederick Collection of Historic Pianos (Ashburnham, MA), and at the Historic Keyboard Society of North America's conference at the University of Michigan. In the fall of 2019, they toured campuses in North Carolina, playing a program of Beethoven's Op. 12 sonatas for historical performance enthusiasts. The duo's recently released recording of Beethoven's complete sonatas for piano and violin has been hailed as "nothing short of revelatory...emotionally satisfying, and true to both the letter and the spirit of Beethoven's compositional process." (Transcentury Blogspot). 

At the other end of the spectrum, Jeri's projects have included the creation of a festival devoted to the works of Paul Hindemith, in which she played sonatas, collaborated in larger chamber ensembles, and conducted the rarely performed Kammermusik No. 2, presented both at Colorado College and SUNY Potsdam.  A committed music educator, she pulls engaging and enthusiastic performances from student ensembles, teaching from her chamber music background to open their ears to phrasing and sound.

 Jeri was founding first violinist of the DaVinci Quartet, prizewinners in the Shostakovich International String Quartet Competition and finalists in the Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. Her recordings with the quartet appear on the Naxos label.  During the 24-year history of the quartet she performed at the Phillips Collection (Washington, DC), the Palm Springs Desert Museum, the Buell Theatre (Denver)  the Wilshire-Ebell Theatre (LA),  chamber music societies from Sedona to Albany, as well as taught in visiting residencies at Yale University, Tufts University, Williams College, and UC Davis.

Jeri has designed and delivered classroom and concert presentations about music to students and adults, including "Emotion in Music" for Chicago Young Audiences and   "Exploring Rhythm" for gifted non-musician middle school students, as well as developing and implementing curriculum for beginning strings in under-resourced public schools. She also founded and leads the Manitou Chamber Music Festival, now in its eighth year, in which students play side-by-side with established artists. And in response to the 2020-21 pandemic, Jeri created an interactive, real-time online chamber music program that served ensemble students of the Colorado Springs Youth Symphony Association, the Lamont Pre-College Academy, and Colorado College.

A member of the performance faculty of Colorado College and co-orchestra director, Jeri has also been a faculty member at the Lamont School of Music of the University of Denver, and visiting assistant professor at SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music.  She holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. 

jjorgensen@pcisys.net