She is a flautist and piccolo player born in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, who earned her Bachelor of Music degree at Duquesne University’s Mary Papper School of Music and took further studies in Ohio at the University of Akron.
After her studies she held the positions of second flute with the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, Assistant Principal Flute of the Louisville Orchestra and Principal Flute of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic.
In 2005 the music director Daniel Barenboim appointed her to the flute and piccolo section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Since joining the orchestra she has performed in its Once In a Symphony series, the MusicNOW series where she made her flute solo debut on Nesting Cranes by Shirish Korde in 2007 and the CSO Chamber Music Series. Her piccolo solo debut was in the CSO’s subscription series where she performed Concerto in C Major (RV 443) by Vivaldi. She has since given many other solo performances with the orchestra on flute and piccolo and in December 2020 she took the Dora and John Aalbregtse Piccolo Chair after it had been endowed to her position in the orchestra.
She has participated at the Arizona Musicfest, Buzzards Bay Musicfest, St. Bart’s Music Festival and the Sunflower Music Festival and been a guest musician with the Bach Week Festival, Beyond Chicago, the Civitas Ensemble, Dempster Street Pro Musica and Music of the Baroque.
Recordings she has performed on include Stereo is King by Mason Bates, the soundtrack to the film Lincoln by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Blue Moth by Anna Clyne.
In the field of musical education she has been a guest at several national universities where she has taught many piccolo and flute master classes and at the 2018 International Piccolo Festival in Grado, Italy. She has also been a sought after clinician and a lecturer at Duquesne University.
Her husband is Jonathan Gunn who teaches at the University of Texas Butler School of Music where he holds the position of Professor Clarinet.
Sources:
- https://cso.org/about/performers/cso-musicians/woodwinds/piccolo/jennifer-gunn/
- https://music.northwestern.edu/faculty/profile/jennifer-gunn
- https://thefluteexaminer.com/interview-with-jennifer-gunn/
- https://csosoundsandstories.org/meet-the-musicians-jennifer-gunn-piccolo-and-flute/
- https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/howard-reich/ct-ae-cso-jennifer-gunn-reich-0310-story.html
- https://chicagofluteclub.org/resources/Documents/2021%20Festival%20Program%20Book%20Final%20Version.pdf
- https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jennifer-gunn-mn0002876813
- https://www.discogs.com/it/artist/6369860-Jennifer-Gunn