Catherine Lange-Jensen

Catherine Lange-Jensen battled ovarian cancer for 3 years.  Her commitment to the orchestra, her family and her other love – cooking.  Even after a relapse in July she led the second violin section in the challenging music for the Cincinnati Opera summer festival.

Cathy’s life was a testament to her commitment to music and her tremendous gifts as a violinist.  She once recalled a pivotal moment when she first heard Brahms’ Second Symphony at the young age of thirteen.   From that moment on, she said that she knew music needed to be her lifelong career aspiration.  This dream was realized through passion and talent, but also hard work and study.  As a student at the renowned School of Music at Indiana University, she was coached by the legendary cellist Janos Starker and performed as concertmaster under the baton of Leonard Bernstein while he was in residence there.  In 1984, she auditioned and was accepted into the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.  She spent the next 29 years performing with this world-class ensemble. During her career she appeared on more than 100 Telarc discs as well as performing as soloist and playing with the CSO Chamber Players.  She spent almost as many years serving as the orchestra’s associate principal second violin, performing regularly under such great conductors as Jesús López Cobos, Paavo Järvi, and Eric Kunzel.

Cathy was a founding member and first violin for the Rine Quarter and the Patricia A. Corbett String Quartet in Residence at Northern Kentucky University from 2010-13.  When the quartet residency ended she continued teaching at NKU.

Cathy was born in St. Louis and began studying violin at age 5 with her mother.  By age 8 she was a student of John Kendall, a pioneer in the Suzuki violin method in the United States.