Violinist Jennifer Gersten, a two-time ASF fellow in Music, delivers an imaginative program of six solo violin works by experimental Scandinavia-based composers, three of which will be presented for the first time in the United States. These works push the violin to its dynamic and timbral extremes, traversing strange territories of far-flung birds, fragmented mutterings, and butterfly wingflaps. The program will conclude with a world premiere of a new work by Gersten and the Norwegian composer and double bassist Inga Margrete Aas.
PROGRAM
KRISTINE TJØGERSEN — Avian Chatters (2021)
JO DAVID MEYER LYSNE — Støygester (2023) (US premiere)
PER NØRGÅRD — The Secret Melody (1998) (arr. for violin by Heinrich Hörlein
I. Prologue
II. Roaming
III. Singing
IV. Playing
V. Epilogue
SIMON LØFFLER — Aurora (2025) (US premiere)
LUIS FERNANDO AMAYA — Bestiario: cinco (2023) (ver. for violin)
INGA MARGRETE AAS & JENNIFER GERSTEN — Mittel himmel (2026) (WP)
I.
II.
III.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jennifer Wei Gersten is a violinist and writer from New York City. A former tenured tutti violinist in Helsingborg Symfoniorkester (Sweden), she is active within the avant-garde and improvised music scenes of New York City and Scandinavia as a performer and instigator of creative music projects. Her 2026 debut record Keep Telling Yourself That (Relative Pitch Records), with bassist Maggie Cox, has been described as “wildly inventive” (Squidco) and “where instrumental identity begins to fray” (New York City Jazz Record). Forthcoming projects include new solo violin works developed with Inga Margrete Aas, Jo David Meyer Lysne, Luis Fernando Amaya, Isaiah Ceccarelli, and Joan Arnau Pàmies, among others.
Jennifer is additionally a journalist who has contributed feature reporting on various cultural subjects, essays, and music criticism to The New York Times, The New Yorker, Bloomberg, Rolling Stone, Gramophone, and The Washington Post, among many other publications. Her liner notes and program essays on music spanning the centuries are in-demand for musicians and presenters across Europe and the United States. She holds a DMA and MM in violin performance from Stony Brook University and a BA from Yale, where she majored in English and creative writing. She is a former Fulbright and two-time ASF fellow for reporting on, performing, and collaborating within the Norwegian experimental music scene.