Jennifer Smith, Viola

Jennifer Smith is principal viola of the String Orchestra of the Rockies based in Missoula and maintains a large private studio of violin and viola students in Great Falls. A frequent adjudicator throughout Montana, she also is adjunct faculty at the University of Great Falls and performs annually with the Chanticleer Quartet each August in Indiana. For 17 years Smith was violist of the Cascade Quartet and principal viola of the Great Falls Symphony. In the summer of 2008 she and her husband, writer Scott Friskics, were the recipients of the Artist*Wilderness*Connection program’s artist-in-residency grant. The result is their highly successful interactive performance piece, Crossing Boundaries: Musings on Bach in the Backcountry, which explores the place of wilderness in contemporary society through written word and music for solo viola. Smith has performed internationally, received a Professional Development Grant through the MT Arts Council, premiered Dan Bukvich’s Viola Concerto with the Great Falls Symphony in 2003, been published in the American String Teacher magazine, and is a past-president of the Montana chapter of the American String Teachers Association (ASTA). Her education includes the Cleveland Institute of Music, Yale and Peabody Conservatory with teachers Heidi Castleman, Karen Tuttle, Jesse Levine and William Lincer.