Tessa Lark

Lark has been a featured soloist with U.S. orchestras including the Buffalo^[5] and Binghamton Philharmonics; the Cincinnati, Albany, Indianapolis, Longwood, New Haven, Hawaii, Santa Fe, Cheyenne, Santa Cruz, and Peninsula symphony orchestras; the Louisville Orchestra; CityMusic Cleveland; the New Juilliard Ensemble Chamber Orchestras; and internationally with the Chinese Opera and Ballet Symphony.^[6]

In 2015 and 2018, she was a soloist with the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, in the Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park, in the summer series. ^[7]

In 2016, Lark commissioned composer Michael Thurber to write her the violin concerto "Love Letter", which was premiered by the Carmel Symphony Orchestra in February 2018.^[8][9] Also in 2016, she commissioned Michael Torke through the Distinctive Debuts recital at Carnegie Hall to write "Spoon Bread", a sonata for violin and piano.^[10] She premiered it in 2017 at Weill Hall with pianist Roman Rabinovich.^[11]

In 2018, Torke wrote the violin concerto "Sky" for Lark, which she premiered with the Albany Symphony Orchestra in January 2019.^[10] She was nominated for a 2020 Grammy Award in the "Best Classical Instrument Solo" category for the recording.

In 2017, Lark gave a solo recital at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall as part of Carnegie's Distinctive Debuts series.^[12] Lark has also given recitals at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Perlman Music Program, San Francisco Performances, Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts, Ravinia's Bennett-Gordon Classics series, Troy Chromatic Concerts, Chamber Music Tulsa, Caramoor's Wednesday Morning Concerts, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and the Marlboro music festival.^[12]

Lark has toured with musicians from Ravinia's Steans Music Institute and with Musicians from Marlboro. She has performed at the Seattle Chamber Music Society and her piano trio, Namirovsky-Lark-Pae, won the 2012 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.^[13] She is also a member of the Caramoor Virtuosi.^[14]

In 2014, she was featured on Mark O'Connor's album MOC4.^[15]

In 2018, Lark received a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship.^[16] In 2016, she received an Avery Fisher Career Grant.^[17] In 2014, she received a career grant from the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund for the Performing and Visual Arts.^[18] She was the silver medalist in the 9th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis (IVCI),^[19] and winner of the 2012 Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition.^[12]