Jennifer Rhodes has performed with orchestras such as the Tucson, New World, and New Mexico Symphonies as well as Utah Festival Opera Company, where she was a featured soloist, and as a collaborative artist with Santa Fe New Music.  As a founding artist for the trio Salonnières, she performs themed, salon-style concerts and has released two full length albums. For the past decade, she has served as concertmaster for Millennial Choirs and Orchestras, with whom she frequently solos and records. 

As a composer, much of the music Jennie creates is for chamber ensembles or string student performance, and her catalog includes both secular and sacred work.  She is a 2022 recipient of the Arizona Commission for the Arts – Artist Research and Development Grant, which she is using to expand her practice into string orchestra composition.  She is now the in-house composer for 7-City Strings and the composer in residence for Heritage High School’s orchestra program (Mesa). Several of her pieces have been professionally recorded by Salonnières, including her arrangement of “His Eye is on the Sparrow,” which was featured on UK-based Classical Crossover Magazine’s virtual concert series, and “His Voice as the Sound of the Dulcimer Sweet,” which was performed in Europe for the first time as part of the Interharmony International Music Fest in Italy.

Jennie has taught privately for over 20 years, through her home studio as well as through Rice University’s Preparatory Conservatory in Houston, TX and the Patel Conservatory in Tampa, FL.  She currently teaches in collaboration with 7-City Strings, a Phoenix based violin school offering private lessons, fiddle bands, and chamber ensembles.  

Actively involved in arts administration, Jennie has worked for such organizations as University Musical Society, Spoleto Festival USA, Rocky Ridge Music Center, and the National Institute for Education and the Arts, covering ground in programming, education and outreach, editing and publishing, production, house management, licensing, and graphic design.

Jennie holds degrees from Rice University and the University of Michigan, graduating summa cum laude from both schools. She performed with the Ann Arbor, Flint, and Huntsville Symphonies while a student. Her primary teachers include Kenneth Goldsmith, Kathryn Votapek, Aaron Berofsky, Marjorie Bagley, Ted Ashton, and Janice McAllister.  Her principal chamber coaches include Cho-Liang Lang, Lynn Harrell, Martin Katz, Norman Fischer, Andrew Jennings, James Dunham, and Yehonatan Berick. Prior to college, Jennie won first prize in her state American String Teachers Association competition and sat concertmaster for her All-State Orchestra.

Jennie lives in Gilbert, AZ with her husband Matthew and their four children.