Jessica Oudin

Biography

Jessica Oudin will join the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s Viola Section in January 2011.  Previously, she served as Principal Violist for both the Canton Symphony Orchestra and CityMusic Cleveland.  Ms. Oudin has also been a frequent substitute musician with The Cleveland Orchestra, and has performed with them on their 2009 European Tour and their 2010 Blossom Music Festival season. 

Described as an “eloquent musician” by the San Francisco Classical Voice, Ms. Oudin made her New York debut with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in March of 2007.  As a chamber musician, she has collaborated with members of The Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Peabody Trio, Cleveland and Cavani String Quartets, and has made several appearances in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall with renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman.  In 2008, Ms. Oudin appeared again with Mr. Perlman in critically acclaimed concerts at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.  As violist of the Kashii String Quartet, she has worked closely with members of the Emerson and Takacs Quartets, and has received top prizes in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Annual Competition, the Darius Milhaud Performance Prize Competition, and the Louis E. Emsheimer Memorial Music Competition.  With the Kashii String Quartet, Ms. Oudin recorded Aaron Jay Kernis’s “100 Greatest Dance Hits” along with guitarist David Tanenbaum for the Black Box record label, and in 2005 served on the chamber music faculty for the Innsbrook Music Institute.  She additionally served on the chamber music faculty for the Yellow Barn Music School Young Artist Program in 2008. 

As a soloist, Ms. Oudin has appeared with CityMusic Cleveland in performances of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante (with violinist Nathan Olson) throughout northeastern Ohio, and she makes her solo debut with the Canton Symphony this evening.  Ms. Oudin has performed in masterclasses for artists such as Kim Kashkashian, Thomas Riebl, Barbara Westphal, Roger Tapping, Atar Arad, and Roland Vamos.  Honors include The Horace and Marie Arnold Prize in Viola Performance (CIM), Alumni Association Artistic Achievement Award for four consecutive years (CIM), The Darius Milhaud Award (CIM), First Place in the Musicfest Scholarship Competition, and top prizes at the Corpus Christi International Young Artists’ Competition. Festival appearances include The International Musicians’ Seminar at Prussia Cove (UK), The Sarasota Music Festival, Yellow Barn, Music@Menlo, The Perlman Chamber Music Program, and The Aspen Music Festival. 

Ms. Oudin graduated with high honors from The Cleveland Institute of Music, where she was a student of Jeffrey Irvine, and holds a Masters degree from The Juilliard School, where she was a teaching assistant to Heidi Castleman and Misha Amory. Further studies were undertaken at CIM as a student in the Professional Studies Program under the tutelage of Robert Vernon.  Jessica currently resides in Atlanta with her husband, pianist Alexander Wasserman.