Jennifer Lynne Penner
1984
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Jennifer Penner, a violinist and conductor, was orchestra and band director at Canadian University College, from 2010 to 2012. A versatile performer, she has served as a member of and soloist with numerous string ensembles and orchestras.
Penner was born in Dayton, Ohio, one of three children of Gregory and Maray Penner. She and her brother and sister grew up in a home where music was an important activity, both their parents as well as maternal and fraternal grandparents being active amateur musicians. All three children were home schooled.
Jennifer started piano lessons at age six and violin study with Bonnie Black at Boston University at age eight. She continued violin study with Magdalena Richter at the New England Conservatory of Music from 1998 until 2002, when she enrolled at Columbia Union College, now Washington Adventist University. From 1991 to 1996, she also studied piano under Naydene Bowder at Bowdoin College.
Penner completed a B.Mus. in violin performance summa cum laude at CUC in 2006, taking her violin study under Gerald Fischbach at the University of Maryland. In that same year she became a certified Suzuki Teacher (books 1-10), having earned twelve hours of graduate credit, and completed 96 hours of observation under teacher trainer Ronda Cole at UM in the previous two years.
She received a Presidential Scholarship Award each year she was at CUC and in 2004 and 2005 was a recipient of the Sligo Federated Music Club Neil Tilkins Scholarship. She was a member of the Alpha Chi National Honor Society from her sophomore through senior years and a Who's Who Among Students in American Universities honoree the year she graduated.
In her four years at CUC, she was a soloist with and member and concertmaster of the New England Youth and Symphonic ensembles under the direction of Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse. She toured with those groups to five continents, playing in venues such as the Sydney Opera House in Australia, St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, and in Carnegie Hall and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the U.S. She continued piano lessons during her first two years at CUC, studying with Nancy Edison.
Penner received an M.Mus. summa cum laude and a D.M.A. (2012) in violin at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music as a scholarship student under Suli Xue. Minor areas in her doctoral study included instrumental conducting, musicology, and early music performance, the latter taken under Elizabeth Blumenstock and Susan Feldman. She performed during this time on a baroque violin as a soloist and member with the USC Baroque Sinfonia and as a guest with the Los Angeles baroque orchestra Musica Angelica.