Cellist Clarice Jensen completed her bachelor's and master's degrees at The Juilliard School, as a student of Joel Krosnick. She began studying cello at the age of three and piano when she was five in her hometown of Independence, Missouri. While firmly rooted in classical performance, Ms. Jensen is also an enthusiastic advocate for the performance of new music. She is the artistic director of ACME, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, a group dedicated to the outstanding performance of contemporary classical music.
The New York Times has written that ACME plays “electrifyingly,” and Time Out New York reports, “polished and playful, its programs are a broad-minded mix of rigor and eclecticism,” and, “the ACME roster has consistently featured some of New York’s brightest, busiest players . . . And Jensen has earned a sterling reputation for her fresh, inclusive mix of minimalists, maximalists, eclectics and newcomers.”
In addition to her engagements with ACME, Ms. Jensen is a member of yMusic, and has performed with the New Juilliard Ensemble, Continuum, the Argento New Music Project, Axiom, the International Music Ensemble, the Avian Orchestra, Columbia Composers, and the Wordless Music Orchestra, among others. As a soloist and chamber musician, she has performed in all manner of venues in New York, from Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium and Zankel Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Alice Tully Hall, to Joe’s Pub, the Brooklyn Lyceum, the Tenri Cultural Center, and the Whitney and Guggenheim Museums.
Skilled at improvising and creating original string arrangements, Ms. Jensen has performed with pop and rock musicians including The National, Grizzly Bear, Silversun Pickups, Teddy Thompson, !!!, Owen Pallett, My Brightest Diamond (Shara Worden), Max Richter, Stars of the Lid, DUstin O'Halloran, Shudder to Think, Jóhann Jóhannsson and Max Richter live in concert as well as on MTV Unplugged, the Oxygen Network, The Late Show with David Letterman, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. She has recorded with the Arcade Fire, Ratatat, Grizzly Bear, Hole, Tyondai Braxton of Battles, The National, Doveman, Jónsi, !!!, Owen Pallett, electronica duo Matmos, and can also be heard on Nico Muhly's Speaks Volumes album.
Ms. Jensen performed the U.S. premiere of Guo Wenjing's Concertino for Cello and Ensemble as part of the Lincoln Center Festival, the world premiere of Dimitri Yanov-Yanovsky's Hearing Solution for cello and ensemble as part of the Silk Road "Artist in Residence" program, the U.S. premiere of Roger Reynold's Process and Passion for cello, violin and computer, the world premiere of Donald Martino's Rhapsody for cello, vibraphone and piano, and the U.S. Premiere of Kevin Volans’ Shiva Dances for string quartet.
She has participated in master classes with composers Elliott Carter, Milton Babbitt, and Ned Rorem, and with a number of cellists including Yo Yo Ma, Harvey Shapiro and Colin Carr. She was a finalist in the Stulberg International String Competition, the Kingsville Young Performers Competition, and has performed as soloist with the Kansas City Symphony, the Independence Symphony, the Overland Park Symphony, and the World Youth Symphony Orchestra at the Interlochen Arts Academy. She also served as principal cellist for two years at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy.
Past roles include production coordinator and assistant to the recording artist Björk.
