Hans Jørgen Jensen

Hans Jørgen Jensen is Professor of cello at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University and the Glenn Gould School. From 1979 to 1987 he was professor of cello at the Moore's School of Music at the University of Houston. During the summer, he is a faculty member at The Meadowmount School of Music and The Young Artist Program at the National Arts Center in Ottawa, Canada, under the direction of Pinchas Zukerman. He has been a guest professor at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, The Oberlin College Conservatory, The Eastman School of Music, The Academy of Music in Sydney, The Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen, the Tokyo College of Music and the Musashino Academy of Music in Japan, the Festival de Musica de Santa Catarina in Brazil, The Jerusalem Music Center, and the PyeongChang International Festival and School in Korea.

Mr. Jensen has performed as a soloist in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan, including solo appearances with the Danish Radio Orchestra, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Copenhagen Symphony, and the Irish Radio Orchestra under the baton of conductors such as Simon Rattle, Mistislav Rostropovich and Carlo Zecchi. He has given numerous workshops and master classes across the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, Brazil, Korea, Australia, and Israel.

His former students have been and are members of major orchestras, including The New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, the Colorado Symphony, the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Portugal, the Graz Philharmonic in Austria and the Montreal Symphony. Mr. Jensen’s former students are currently the principal cellists in the Toronto Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Symphony Nova Scotia. His former students hold teaching positions at Northwestern University, the University of California at Berkeley, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory, the Cincinnati College Conservatory, the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen, the Desautels Faculty of Music at the University of Manitoba and numerous other music schools.

Hans Jørgen Jensen’s students have been first-prize winners in competitions such as the 2017 Klein Competition, the 2017 Sphinx Competition, the Casado International Competition in Japan, the Johansen International Competition, the MTNA National Competition, the ASTA National Competition, the Stulberg International Competition, the Chicago Symphony Young Performers Competition, the WAMSO Young Artist Competition, and numerous other competitions. His students have also been prizewinners in the 2017 Queen Elisabeth Inaugural Cello Competition, the Naumburg International Competition, the Lutoslawski Cello Competition, and the Klein Competition.

Mr. Jensen was awarded the prestigious 2010 Artist Teacher Award from the American String Teachers Association (ASTA), as well as the Copenhagen Music Critics Prize, the Jacob Gades Prize, the Danish Ministry of Cultural Affairs Grant for Musicians, the Northwestern Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence award, and the U.S. Presidential Scholar Teacher Recognition Award by the U.S. Department of Education. He was named the outstanding studio teacher of the year by Illinois ASTA. He was also the winner of the Artist International Competition, which resulted in three New York Recitals. E.C. Shirmer, Boston, published his transcription of the Galamian Scale System for Cello Volume I and II, and Shar Products Company published his cello method book, Fun in Thumb Position. A new pedagogy book CelloMind was published in November 2017 by OvationPress.

Jensen studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Denmark with Asger Lund Christiansen at the Juilliard School with Leonard Rose and Channing Robbins and pursued private studies with Pierre Fournier, also appearing in his master classes.