Jennifer Thiessen is a musician, writer, and artistic director based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Within a multiplicity of artistic adventures, she is grounded in a passion to create meaningful experiences for herself and her listeners.

As a creative musician, Jennifer makes music for voice, viola, and electronics for her singer-songwriter project Daily Alice. Park Sounds, her duo with percussionist Ben Reimer, premiered their contemporary Root Systems program in 2019, composed an audio/video work called Time Piece for GroundSwell in 2022, and performed a program of original music for Ottawa New Music Creators in 2023. Toninato/Thiessen, her duo with saxophonist Ida Toninato, was nominated for JUNO and OPUS awards in 2019 for their album The Space Between Us (Ambiances Magnétiques) and premiered their second co-composed project, Winter[City]Speaks, for GroundSwell in 2023. S[ILK]S, her experimental duo with Andrea Young, created For You, Alone for voices and electronics in 2021 (No Hay Banda), and will co-compose a new piece in 2023. Andrea Young commissioned Jennifer to write other/ether for voice and delay in 2021, and in 2022 she wrote La question for flutist Marilène Provencher-Leduc, commissioned by ensembles Bakarlari and Iléa. Jennifer received the 2022 Roberta Stephen Award from the Association of Canadian Women Composers to develop her skills in score-making.

As a classical musician, Jennifer has commissioned new pieces by Canadian composers for the viola and the viola d’amore presented by Innovations en Concert, Cluster Festival, and Ottawa New Music Creators. She has also performed historical programs for the viola d’amore at the Festival Montréal Baroque, the Lamèque International Baroque Festival, and as soloist with the Oakville Chamber Orchestra. She has joined Ensemble Caprice, collectif9, Ensemble SuperMusique, Clavecin en concert, le Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, Constantinople, Quatuor Bozzini and many others for concerts and recordings. From 2007 to 2012, she toured the world with La La La Human Steps performing new chamber music by Gavin Bryars and David Lang in the productions Amjad and New Work. Since moving back to Manitoba from Montreal in 2021, Jennifer has played for GroundSwell, the Rosamunde festival, send+receive festival with Yannis Kyriakides, Brandon Chamber Players with Marika Galea, and with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. She became Artistic Director of the classical chamber music series Virtuosi Concerts in 2021.

Jennifer’s love of words is making its way into her work. She writes song lyrics and poetry for her creative music projects and contributes album reviews and feature articles to Musicworks Magazine. Her first book-length piece of creative writing, Out of Body was commissioned by André Cormier for his Piling Sand—Piling Stone project and will be published in 2024.

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