A passionately committed performer and teaching artist, cellist Kirsten Jermé has performed chamber music internationally from the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. to Harlaxton College in England to La Pieve di Gropina in Arezzo, Italy. Based in New York City, Kirsten served as guest cellist of the Cassatt String Quartet for the 2022 Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music and has recently appeared with the Harlem Chamber Players, North Country Chamber Players, and in a series of concerts she curates at the cell theatre in Chelsea with Atrikk Ensemble.  Formerly cellist of the Larchmere String Quartet, she performed across the U.S., in Canada and Italy and recorded for Naxos while serving as Eykamp String Quartet Faculty Artist-in-Residence at the University of Evansville and Principal Cellist of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra.  Kirsten also served as Applied Lecturer of Cello at North Carolina State University and has given masterclasses at UNC-Chapel Hill, Western Kentucky University, Otterbein University and Middle Tennessee State University.  Her eclectic freelance life in New York has brought her to stages ranging from Carnegie, Weill and Zankel Halls to Madison Square Garden, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Roulette, and the United Nations, and she recently recorded several film scores.  She has appeared as a chamber musician with the Carolina Ballet, Battleworks Dance Company at the Joyce Theater, and with members of the Louisville Ballet and Orchestra at the Speed Art Museum, and on series such as Electric Earth Concerts, the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Raleigh Sights and Sounds Series with Mallarmé Chamber Players, and the Strad for Lunch Recital Series. 

 

With the Larchmere String Quartet, she appeared in concert for presenters such as the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series, Sarnia Concert Association, Art Institute of Chicago, Indiana University’s Sundays at Auer series with violist Atar Arad, and Nashville Public Radio; worked with Günther Pichler of the Alban Berg Quartett at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy; and recorded the string quartet and clarinet quintet of Stephan Krehl with clarinetist Wonkak Kim for the Naxos label.  In her four seasons as Principal Cellist of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra and cellist of the Eykamp String Quartet, the quartet was featured twice as soloists with the Philharmonic and received the Mayor's Arts Award for outstanding ensemble.  A passionate proponent of chamber music pedagogy, Kirsten spearheaded the development of a chamber music course at the University of Evansville with her colleagues in the Eykamp Quartet, helped run a string quartet mentorship program for members of the Evansville Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, and served as faculty for the Harlaxton Chamber Music Festival at the University of Evansville’s sister school in Grantham, England.  An advocate of building community through live performance, Kirsten also co-founded and curated the "Coffee and Classics" chamber music series at Wired in Evansville.  

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Deeply committed to chamber music education at all stages, Kirsten served as faculty for the North Carolina Chamber Music Institute and coached beginning string quartets for Kidznotes, an El Sistema program.  She has also served as faculty at the Chamber Music Intensive at New England Music Camp and as Director of the Honors Division for Lamar Stringfield Music Camp.  She has taught private students across all ages and stages of development and has served as cello faculty for 92nd Street Y and Greenwich House Music School in Manhattan, Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, Frank Sinatra High School of the Arts after-school program in Queens, Hackley School, Larchmont Music Academy and the Harmony Program at P.S. 129.

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As an orchestral player, Kirsten has subbed in the sections of the North Carolina Symphony, Carolina Ballet, Princeton Symphony and Harrisburg Symphony, and served as guest principal cellist of the Illinois Symphony and Orchestra Kentucky. She appears regularly as a chamber musician with Sullivan County Chamber Orchestra and is a member of the Britt Festival Orchestra in Jacksonville, Oregon.  As a soloist, she has appeared with the Bar Harbor Music Festival chamber orchestra, Metro Chamber Orchestra, University of Evansville Symphony Orchestra and Stony Brook University Orchestra, and collaborated with the Russian Chamber Chorus of New York.  She recorded with Mimesis Ensemble for Bridge Records and performed with groups including Ensemble 20-21, Orchestra for the Next Century, the New England Symphonic Ensemble at Carnegie Hall, and the Orion Symphony Orchestra at Royal Festival Hall in London. 

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Kirsten received her M.M. and Arts Leadership Certificate from Eastman School of Music as a student of Steven Doane and Rosemary Elliott, and a B.A. from Stony Brook University as a pupil of Colin Carr.  She spent a semester at the Royal College of Music in London, studying with Thomas Carroll, and received additional instruction from Käthe Jarka in New York City and Peter Howard at Macalester College. Kirsten attended the Yale-Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Banff Centre Masterclasses, Bowdoin International Music Festival and Domaine Forget, and has studied chamber music with the Emerson String Quartet and members of the Tokyo, Pacifica, and Keller Quartets, as well as Mark Steinberg and Tania León.  She is currently pursuing her Doctoral degree in performance at the CUNY Graduate Center as a student of Marcy Rosen, and has served in an adjunct role at Brooklyn College.