Besides performing around the world with her own groups, Jensen has been featured soloist with DIVA at the 25th Anniversary of the Kennedy Center, and with the Maria Schneider Orchestra, DIVA, and the All-Star Ensemble at the Kennedy Center's 1996 and 1997 Women in Jazz Festivals. Other performances include Brazil and Japan tours with the Maria Schneider Orchestra; the Trumpet Summit of Clark Terry, Roy Hargrove, Tom Harrell, and Benny Bailey in Amsterdam; the Newport Jazz Festival with Dr. John and the GRP All-Stars; and the Mingus Big Band.

Ingrid Jensen's trumpet playing is as fresh and alive as her aptly named debut album "Vernal Fields" on Enja Records. Although her playing has the influences of such jazz greats as Miles Davis, Woody Shaw and Art Farmer, Jensen is creating her own style and conception whether she is playing soft ballads or rapid-fire bop lines.

Downbeat magazine, who gave her CD a four-star rating, wrote, "'Vernal Fields' has the fresh energy and affirmation of a young artist in the act of discovering the outer reaches of her talent . . . watch for Ingrid Jensen."

"Vernal Fields" won Canada's Juno Award as Best Mainstream Album of 1995 and Jensen won for Best Mainstream Artist of the Year, and The Boston Globe voted the album #2 in the Critics' Choice for Best New Artist of the Year category. The same year, Jensen received the Best Newcomer Award at the Cork Festival in Ireland, and weeks later won the second annual Carmine Caruso International Jazz Solo Trumpet Competition held in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

In 1996 Jensen performed throughout Europe, parts of Japan and Chile and into North America playing with her own quartet and big bands, such as the Maria Schneider Orchestra and DIVA. Jensen was selected to play in the All-Star ensemble at the Kennedy Center's Women In Jazz Festival.

Ingrid Jensen was born in North Vancouver, Canada, where as a child she often listened to her mother, who played ragtime and stride piano "for the sheer enjoyment of it." A graduate of Malaspina College in Canada, then Berklee College of Music in Boston, Jensen moved to New York City and was invited to tour Europe with the Vienna Art Orchestra Production "Fe & Males." Following the tour with VAO, she auditioned for a jazz trumpet professor position at Austria's Bruckner Conservatory, becoming the youngest (age 25) teacher there. She immersed herself in as much music as possible, sitting in with touring U.S. jazz musicians, including Lionel Hampton and His Golden Men Of Jazz, where her performance with them caught the attention of Enja Records, the label she now records for exclusively.

Jensen was busy in Europe but longed to be living in New York City, with its energy and variety of music. In 1994, at a summer workshop in Banff, she learned of an audition for a NYC-based big band named DIVA. Jensen won the chair and moved back to the Big Apple and has been playing throughout the world ever since. In North America, she is a busy freelancer in NYC. She has performed at prestigious venues and various jazz clubs and toured Canada leading her own quartet in the Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, and Quebec City Jazz Festivals.

Worldwide, some of the groups she has performed with include the French bassist Hélène Labarriere's Machination; The Maggi Olin Sextet in Sweden; The Pat O'Leary Project in Chile; and her own quintet throughout Japan and Europe, including a concert at the Berlin Jazz Festival in October 1996 with saxophonist Gary Bartz and drummer Cindy Blackman. A summer of '99 tour included the North Sea Jazz Festival, Kongsberg, Norway and the JVC La Villette festival in Paris. She is an active clinician and guest artist. In September 1996 she recorded her second album — "Here On Earth" — for Enja which was released in spring of 1997. Her most recent release is "Higher Grounds" with Victor Lewis and Gary Thomas.

Ingrid Jensen Discography:

HIGHER GROUNDS, Ingrid Jensen (Victor Lewis and Gary Thomas) ENJA Records

HERE ON EARTH, Ingrid Jensen (featuring Gary Bartz) ENJA Records

VERNAL FIELDS, Ingrid Jensen (featuring George Garzone) ENJA Records

ANOTHER WORLD, Dena De Rose, Sharp Nine records

THE NEWCOMER, George Colligan, Steeplechase Records

NINI GREENE, Virginia Mayhew (featuring Kenny Barron) Chiaroscuro Records

YOUTH SONIC (with Chris Potter, George Colligan) Swing Journal Production

LEAVE IT TO DIVA & SOMETHING'S COMING, DIVA Ltd.

ROSANNA LOVES RAY, Rosanna Vitro (with Kenny Werner) Telarc Records

OFF THE WALL, Dan Wall (with Adam Nussbaum) ENJA Records

FIND A WAY, Joel Miller, Isthmus Records

MACHINATION, Helene Labarrierre, Deux Z

FE&MALES, Vienna Art Orchestra, Polygram Amadeus Records

IF WOMEN RULED THE WORLD, Ethel Ennis, Denon Records

BRIGHT LIGHTS, Johannes Enders, ENJA Records

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For more information, please contact:

Toni Ballard
Office of Public Information
Berklee College of Music
617-747-2247

Ingrid Jensen Contact:

Sheila Mathis 804-973-0200, or leave a message at 212-726-8851