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tessa lark

Violinist Tessa Lark, recipient of a 2018 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Silver Medalist in the 9th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, and winner of the 2012 Naumburg International Violin Competition, is one of the most captivating artistic voices of our time. She has consistently been praised by critics and audiences for her astounding range of sounds, technical agility, and musical elegance. Also the recipient of a career grant from the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund for the Performing and Visual Arts in 2014, Ms. Lark continues to expand her relationships with orchestras and presenters on stages worldwide.

Ms. Lark has been a featured soloist at numerous U.S. orchestras since making her concerto debut with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at age sixteen. She performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in 2017 on Carnegie's Distinctive Debuts series, and again the following year as part of APAP's Young Performers Career Advancement showcase. Ms. Lark has appeared at such venues as Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Perlman Music Program, San Francisco Performances, Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts, Ravinia’s Bennett-Gordon Classics series, Troy Chromatic Concerts, Chamber Music Tulsa, Caramoor's Wednesday Morning Concerts, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, and the Marlboro, Yellow Barn, Olympic, and Music@Menlo festivals.

Highlights of her 2017-18 season include a recital at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC; a return to the Troy Chromatic series; an appearance with the Carmel (IN) Symphony Orchestra featuring the world premiere of Love Letter, a concerto written for her by Michael Thurber; debuts with the Buffalo and Binghamton (NY) philharmonics, the North Mississippi and Springfield (MO) symphonies, and Boston’s Longwood Symphony Orchestra. In January 2019 she makes her debut with the Albany (NY) Symphony Orchestra, performing the world premiere of a violin concerto written for her by Michael Torke.

Ms. Lark has been soloist with the Cincinnati, New Haven, Hawaii, Santa Fe, Indianapolis, Cheyenne, Santa Cruz, and Peninsula symphony orchestras; the Louisville Orchestra; CityMusic Cleveland; the New Juilliard Ensemble Chamber Orchestras; and internationally with the Chinese Opera and Ballet Symphony. A passionate chamber musician, she has toured with musicians from Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute and, during the 2017-18 season, with Musicians from Marlboro. Her piano trio, Trio Modêtre, took top prize in the 2012 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Ms. Lark has collaborated with a growing list of renowned artists including Mitsuko Uchida, Itzhak Perlman, Miriam Fried, Donald Weilerstein,Pamela Frank, Kim Kashkashian, Peter Wiley, and Ralph Kirshbaum. She joinedCaramoor Virtuosi as a result of her participation in Caramoor's Rising Stars Series.

Keeping in touch with her Kentucky roots, Ms. Lark performs and programs bluegrass and Appalachian music regularly and collaborated with Mark O'Connor on his CD "MOC4," released in June 2014. She also plays jazz violin, most recently performing with the Juilliard Jazz Ensemble at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola in New York City. She premiered her own Appalachian Fantasy as part of her Distinctive Debuts recital at Carnegie Hall, where she also gave the world premiere of Michael Torke’s Spoon Bread, written specifically for her stylistic capabilities.

In addition to her busy performance schedule, Ms. Lark has served on the faculty of the Great Wall International Music Academy in Beijing, and, as a From the Top alumna, is active in their arts leadership program as a performer and educator. Ms. Lark’s primary mentors include Cathy McGlasson, Kurt Sassmannshaus, Miriam Fried, and Lucy Chapman. She is a graduate of New England Conservatory and completed her Artist Diploma at The Juilliard School, where she studied with Sylvia Rosenberg, Ida Kavafian, and Daniel Phillips. Ms. Lark plays the 1683 “ex-Gingold” Stradivari violin on generous loan from the Josef Gingold Fund for the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis.

Tessa Lark is represented worldwide by New York-based Sciolino Artist Management, www.samnyc.us.