Jennifer Gersten
Hometown: Hollis, New York
Major/Degree: DMA in Music, Violin Performance
Departmental advisors/research mentors: Arnaud Sussmann, Jennifer Frautschi, Erika Honisch, Judith Lochhead
Gersten received a Fulbright Research Award. Based at the Norwegian Academy of Music and supervised by Professor Eivind Buene, she will examine composers of contemporary classical Norwegian music, such as Øyvind Torvund, whose work engages Norwegian folk music and history. Gersten will share the research in the form of popular-interest journalism and culminating performances in both Norway and the US. She also plans to volunteer as a production assistant at various experimental music festivals. She received the 2022-23 American Scandinavian Foundation grant for the same project.
She won the 2018 Rubin Institute Prize in Music Criticism, a $10,000 award granted by nation’s leading music critics for “outstanding promise” in the field, and was awarded violin performance fellowships to Tanglewood Music Center (2021), Lucerne Festival Academy (2021), Kneisel Hall (2019), Colorado College Summer Music Festival (2018/19) and Bowdoin Music Festival (2017).
