About Tessa Lark

Tessa Lark, 18, has performed worldwide as a violin soloist. Through June 2006, Tessa was concertmaster of the Starling Chamber Orchestra at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (CCM), toured southern China with them in 2001, performed with them at Aspen in 2002 and 2004, and performed with them in Germany, Austria, and Russia in 2003 and in London in 2004.   In September of 2006, Tessa became a scholarship student of Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory (NEC), Boston, majoring in violin perfmormance.

Tessa has been playing violin since she was 6.  Her first teacher was Cathy McGlasson, and she has also studied with William Goodwin and Mason Newman.  At age 11, Tessa began 6 years of violin studies with Kurt Sassmannshaus at CCM through the Starling Preparatory String Project. 

Tessa has also played with Narrow Road, a Kentucky Gospel Bluegrass Band.  As a member of the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras , she was Assistant Concertmaster for the Concert Orchestra and a member of Symphony through Spring 2002. Tessa was Concertmaster at the Foster Music Camp at Eastern Kentucky University, attended the Mark O'Connor Fiddle Camp near Nashville in 2000, 2003, 2005, and 2006, attended the Aspen Music School on a New Horizon Fellowship in 2004, and was a scholarship student at the Great Wall Academy in 2005. 

Tessa is featured in several instructional and performance videos on www.ViolinMasterclass.com, and has  performed on the public radio program, From The Top.   She was a featured soloist at the Forbidden City Concert Hall with the Beijing Symphony, and was a featured soloist at Music Hall with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in November, 2005. Tessa's farewell solo with the Starling Chamber Orchestra in the spring of 2006 was her performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto. In March, 2006, Tessa won First Place in the Johansen International Strings Competition in Washington, D.C.