Hans Jørgen Jensen, Professor of Cello at Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 2010 Artist Teacher Award from the American String Teachers Association (ASTA), the Presidential Scholars Program Teacher Recognition Award from the US Departmentof Education, and the Danish Music Critics Award in Copenhagen, one of Denmark’s most prestigious awards. Professor Jensen has performed and taught master classes across the United States, as well as in Canada, Australia, Brazil, Europe, Israel, Japan, and South Korea. Many of his students are first prize winners in numerous national and international competitions, as well as members of major US orchestras and leading music schools. Professor Jensen is also a faculty member of the Glenn Gould School in Toronto, Canada, and the Meadowmount School of Music in Westport, New York. Jensen has published the following books: Fun in Thumb Position, The Galamian Scale System for Cello: Volume I and Volume II, CelloMind, and ViolinMind, the latter two books published by Ovation Press. Jensen studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Denmark with cellist Asger Lund Christiansen and at the Juilliard School with Leonard Rose and Channing Robbins.
Canadian cellist Oleksander Mycyk enjoys a multifaceted career as a solo, chamber, and orchestral performer and teacher. He is completing a Doctorate in Musical Arts at Northwestern University Bienen School of Music with Hans Jørgen Jensen and was recently appointed as section cellist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He finished the Certificate in Performance program at Northwestern while a full-time member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra and regularly performs as a substitute cellist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra. Previously, Oleksander received a Bachelor of Music Performance degree at the University of Toronto studying with Simon Fryer and David Hetherington and a masters in Solo Performance at McGill University under the guidance of Matt Haimovitz. He has performed in master classes for cellists such as Lynn Harrell, János Starker, Laurence Lesser, and Aldo Parisot. As part of a collaborative duo, Oleksander was a top prize winner in the Canadian Music Competition and currently teaches applied cello at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago alongside his diverse performance schedule across North America.