A “dream” ensemble, according to King FM-Seattle’s Second Inversion, Frequency presents innovative, invigorating and intriguing chamber music concerts. Composed of violinists Michael Jinsoo Lim and Jennifer Caine Provine (who share the front violin desk of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra as Concertmaster and Associate Concertmaster) and violist Melia Watras and cellist Sarah Rommel (who are on the faculty of the University of Washington School of Music), Frequency is a modular chamber music group, breaking into different parts to present solos, duos and trios, while also expanding with renowned guest artists to perform in a variety of formations. Frequency members have performed as soloists and chamber musicians worldwide, in leading concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall, La Seine Musicale, and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
Violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim has been praised by Gramophone for playing with “delicious abandon,” and hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a “conspicuously accomplished champion of contemporary music.” Concertmaster and solo violinist for the internationally acclaimed Pacific Northwest Ballet, Lim’s solo appearances with the company include performances in Paris, New York City, Los Angeles and Seattle, in concertos by Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bach, Max Richter and others. Lim is the founder of the Seattle-based ensemble Frequency and was co-founder of the award-winning Corigliano Quartet, with whom he appeared on over a dozen albums, including the groups’s Naxos label CD which was honored as one of The New Yorker’s Ten Best Classical Recordings of the Year. His discography can be found on Naxos, Planet M, Sono Luminus, DreamWorks, Albany, Bridge, CRI, Bayer Records, RIAX and New Focus. Lim has served on the faculty of the Banff Centre, taught at Indiana University as a guest professor, and currently serves on the faculty of Cornish College of the Arts.
Jennifer Caine Provine, violinist, is Associate Concertmaster of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra and violinist of the Volta Piano Trio, with whom she has performed extensively throughout the Northwest and abroad, been heard on national radio stations, and recorded three discs on the Con Brio label to critical acclaim. She also performs with Seattle-based chamber ensembles Frequency and Kokopelli, and has appeared on several chamber music series and at national and international summer music festivals. She was Assistant Director and Resident Violinist at the Icicle Creek Center for the Arts in Leavenworth, WA from 2007-2010. A recipient of several awards and grants, Jennifer has also written freelance reviews for Strings magazine’s In Print column. Jennifer holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a master’s degree from the Royal College of Music in London.
Melia Watras has been hailed by Gramophone as “an artist of commanding and poetic personality” and by The Strad as “staggeringly virtuosic.” As a violist, composer and collaborative artist, she has sustained a distinguished career as a creator and facilitator of new music and art. Watras has released 8 albums, while performing on 13 others as violist of the Corigliano Quartet. As a composer, her music has been heard on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, and can be found on the albums String Masks; 3 Songs for Bellows, Buttons and Keys; Firefly Songs; Schumann Resonances and 26. Watras’s adaptation of John Corigliano’s Fancy on a Bach Air for viola is published by G. Schirmer, Inc. and can be heard on her Viola Solo album. She is currently Professor of Viola at the University of Washington School of Music, where she was awarded the Adelaide D. Currie Cole Endowed Professorship, the Donald E. Petersen Endowed Fellowship and the Royalty Research Fund.
Cellist Sarah Rommel is a top-prize winner of the 2014 George Enescu International Cello Competition, as well as the recipient of several grants and awards including a Frank Huntington Beebe Fund Grant and Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award. Sarah has given recitals at Caramoor’s Evnin Rising Stars Showcase and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and has toured with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, and Musicians from Marlboro. An enthusiastic chamber musician, she has been invited to perform at Marlboro Music, Yellow Barn, Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, and Music from Angel Fire, NM, as well as the Music in May Festival, Santa Cruz Chamber Players, Chamber Music Palisades, Caramoor’s Evnin Rising Stars Series, and Chamber Music New Zealand. Sarah is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and USC Thornton School of Music where she studied with Peter Wiley and Ralph Kirshbaum respectively.