Bio

From 1993-2004, Jennifer Johnson held the position of second violin in the Atlantic String Quartet based in St. John’s, Newfoundland. After a playing-related injury in 2004, Jennifer licensed in Body Mapping with founder Barbara Conable. She is now a designated Teacher Trainer for the Association of Body Mapping Education.
Jennifer is an internationally sought-after Master Teacher and is renowned for her expertise in helping musicians to move according to the design of their bodies to address and prevent playing injuries.

She has been on faculty of the New York Philharmonic’s Zarin Mehta Program and has presented Body Mapping workshops to music organizations around the world, including the The Finnish National Opera and The Tuckamore Chamber Music Festival. She was a keynote speaker at the Australian Strings’ Association 2015 Conference. Jennifer was the featured guest of Juilliard’s Noa Kageyama on the Bulletproof Musician podcast in October 2019 and of Renée-Paule Gauthier’s Mind Over Finger podcast in the fall of 2022. In May 2023, Jennifer was invited on faculty of the Starling-Delay Violin Symposium at Juilliard.

Jennifer is presently serving as the Lead for Musicians’ Health Research Initiative at Canada’s newly formed Music and Health Research Institute (MHRI).

Jennifer has written three books on Body Mapping: What Every Violinist Needs to Know
about the Body; Teaching Body Mapping to Children and Musician, Heal Thyself: Free Your Shoulder Region through Body Mapping. Her books have been translated into French, Spanish, Japanese with Portuguese and German translations forthcoming. She is presently working on a documentary about Body Mapping and its founder Barbara Conable.

Fun Facts About Jennifer

When did you join the NSO?

1993

Who inspired you to learn how to play?

My mother

What’s your favourite piece of classical/orchestral music?

Beethoven string quartet, op. 132

If you could pick one artist to collaborate with, who would it be?

Carlos Kleiber

What other non-musical creative outlets do you have?

Writing, filmmaking