Graeme Jennings
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Graeme Jennings, born in 1968 in Australia, studied at the Queensland Conservatorium where he completed his Bachelor’s Degree in 1989, and later on, at the San Francisco Conservatory, earning his Master’s Degree in 1992, and an Artist Certificate in Chamber Music in 1994. His principal violin teachers were Isadore Tinkleman, Anthony Doheny and John Curro. Whilst a student, he was concert-master of the Queensland Youth Orchestra, the Australian Youth Orchestra, and at Expo 88, the International Youth Orchestra. He has also worked with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Queensland Symphony and Queensland Philharmonic Orchestras. He made his solo debut in 1985 with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, performing Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No.1. Since then, he has appeared as soloist in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia, with orchestras such as the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, The Munich Philharmonic, The Paris Radio Philharmonic, The Austrian Radio Orchestra, The Tasmanian Symphony and the Queensland Orchestra. His chamber music partners have included members of the Alban Berg Quartet, Pierre Laurent Aimard, Marc-Andre Hamelin, Ursula Oppens, Stefan Litwin, Joanna Macgregor, Michael Keiran Harvey, Kari Krikku, Claron McFaddon and many others.
As a recitalist, Mr. Jennings has a repertoire ranging from Bach through Boulez and beyond. His main focus these days is on chamber music, as well as being an enthusiastic proponent of new music. He has been highly complimented on his interpretations by composers such as Andriessen, Berio, Carter, Ferneyhough, Lutoslawski, Rihm, Tippett and many others. After hearing him give the Australian premiere (1987) of his “Partita” for violin and piano, Witold Lutoslawski described Graeme as an “inspired performer”.
Under the auspices of an Australia Council grant, Mr. Jennings moved to San Francisco in 1990, devoting himself almost entirely to the discipline of string quartet playing. In the following years he studied chamber music with Mark Sokol, with whom, in 1991, he formed the Conservatory Quartet, alongside Julian and Paul Hersh. This group was renowned for, amongst other things, its marathon, single-evening performances of Elliott Carter’s complete string quartets.
In 1994, Mr. Jennings joined the Arditti String Quartet as Second Violinist. With it, he has toured widely throughout the world, made more than 70 CD recordings, and given more than 300 world premieres of works by composers such as Ades, Andriessen, Birtwistle, Boesmans , Boulez, Carter, Cerha, Dillon, Furrer, Guerrero, Harvey, Hosokawa, Huber, Jarrel, Kagel, Kurtág, Lachenmann, Nishimura, de Pablo, Reynolds, Rihm, Scelsi, Stockhausen, Wuorinen , Xenakis and Zender. The Arditti Quartet has received numerous awards, including the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Prize for 1999, and two Gramaphone awards for its recordings of Carter (1999) and Birtwistle (2002). Most recently, they have been awarded the honorary “Coup de Couer” from the Academie Charles Cros (2004) for their recorded legacy and a Deutsche Schallplatten Preis or its recording of works by Matthias Pintscher.
Despite his busy quartet schedule, Mr Jennings has still managed to make occasional solo appearances. In recent seasons he gave performances of Berg’s Violin Concerto, and in 2003 gave the first Australian performance of Brian Ferneyhough’s fiendishly difficult “Terrain” with the Elision Ensemble. In 2005, he made a studio recording of this work and gave further performances in Sydney and Melbourne. His performance at the Sydney Festival was reviewed in the Sydney Morning Herald as follows:
It’s a work so complex that even with two performances, one’s brain can only scratch the surface. There are many points of entry – Graeme Jennings’ performance, for a start, which was transfixing either as a display of fiddling pyrotechnics, or as an exercise in mind-bending mathematics, or as a lovingly crafted exploration of gestures. This was a phenomenal performance of a daunting but rewarding work.
After 11 years at the center of the new music scene, Graeme chose to leave the Arditti Quartet in the fall of 2005 and now lives in San Francisco with his wife and child. There he hopes to pursue a broader range of musical activity.
