Jennifer Koh

Grammy Award–winning violinist Jennifer Koh is known for performances that unite technical command with a probing, wide-ranging artistic vision. Her work centers on the expansion of the violin repertoire through close collaboration with composers, and she has premiered more than 100 works written for her. As a performer and curator, she engages a broad spectrum of music, placing canonical works alongside newly commissioned pieces.

A major focus of Koh’s recent work is The American Concerto, a multi-season commissioning initiative that reexamines the violin concerto through new works by a diverse group of composers. She has premiered seven concertos in the series, by Nina C. Young, Missy Mazzoli, Tyshawn Sorey, Courtney Bryan, Lisa Bielawa, Christopher Cerrone, and Vijay Iyer, in performances with orchestras across the U.S. and abroad. In August 2026, Koh released volume one of The American Concerto on Cedille Records, featuring concertos by Vijay Iyer and Courtney Bryan, with Oberlin’s Contemporary Music Ensemble conducted by Timothy Weiss. Koh’s performance of Iyer’s concerto is also featured in The Cool Blue Wind, a photographic collage by artist Carrie Mae Weems, currently on display at the Obama Presidential Center.

Koh’s commissioning projects extend across several long-term initiatives, including Alone Together, Bach and Beyond, Bridge to Beethoven, Limitless, and Shared Madness. Alone Together, created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, brought together composers to write short solo works while providing direct support to freelance artists. The resulting Cedille Records album, comprising 39 world-premiere recordings, received the Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.

In 2022, she premiered Everything Rises, an evening-length staged work co-created with bass-baritone Davóne Tines. Drawing on the histories of their families, the work examines questions of migration, identity, and race, and has been presented by institutions including UCSB Arts & Lectures, UCLA, and BAM.

Koh appears regularly with major orchestras, performing repertoire that spans from Baroque to newly commissioned works. Recent engagements include concertos by Brahms and Barber, as well as her debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Bernstein’s Serenade. She has performed with ensembles including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and The Philadelphia Orchestra, collaborating with conductors such as Marin Alsop, Gustavo Dudamel, Lorin Maazel, and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Her repertoire includes concertos by Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, and Sibelius, alongside works by Bartók, Berg, Lutosławski, and Scelsi, as well as contemporary concertos by Anna Clyne, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Steven Mackey.

Her interdisciplinary work includes performances in Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach, in which she appeared as Einstein, and Six Solo, a collaboration with Wilson and choreographer Lucinda Childs that stages Bach’s sonatas and partitas with movement and theatrical elements. She has also collaborated with artists including St. Vincent and choreographer Stephen Petronio.

Koh’s discography on Cedille Records includes more than a dozen albums. Her Bach and Beyond series, released as a three-disc set, traces the development of the solo violin repertoire from Bach to the present, incorporating newly commissioned works alongside canonical pieces. Other recordings include Limitless, featuring duos with composer-performers, and Saariaho X Koh, devoted to the music of Kaija Saariaho, as well as orchestral, chamber, and solo recordings.

Koh is also active as a teacher and speaker, and has served on the faculty of the Mannes School of Music since 2018. Her residencies and guest engagements have included the Curtis Institute of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, Brown, Cornell, and other institutions. She is Founder and Artistic Director of ARCO Collaborative, a nonprofit organization that commissions and produces new work with an emphasis on supporting women and artists of color, and serves on the Distinguished Mentors Council of Composers Now and the board of the League of American Orchestras.

Koh is Artistic Director of the Fortas Chamber Music Concerts in Washington, DC where she often curates programs centered on the evolution of classical music and the commissioning of new work. Under her leadership, the series has presented more than 40 premieres, bringing together leading performers and composers in programs that connect contemporary and historical repertoire.

Born in Chicago to Korean parents, Koh began studying the violin through the Suzuki method and made her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age 11. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including Musical America’s Instrumentalist of the Year, a Concert Artists Guild Virtuoso Award, and an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and is a prizewinner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition. She holds a B.A. in English literature from Oberlin College and studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with Jaime Laredo and Felix Galimir.