DownBeat Critic’s Poll winner for Rising Star Big Band, Arranger and Soprano Saxophonist 2023 Juno Award Jazz Album Solo ‘Day Moon’ 2014 Juno Award Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year ‘Habitat’ CJJO, 2011 Juno Award, Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year ‘Treelines’ CJJO, Two-time recipient of SOCAN’s Hagood Hardy Jazz Composer Award, Awarded the Prix Oscar Peterson from the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal for her exceptional contributions to jazz in Canada. In 2022 joined the Eastman School of Music faculty as professor of jazz studies, where she teaches jazz composition and arranging, along with directing the award-winning Eastman Jazz Ensemble. She has been honoured as a two-time recipient of SOCAN’s Hagood Hardy Jazz Composer Award. Habitat received a coveted 5 stars in Downbeat and was included in their Best Jazz Albums of 2014. In 2017, Jensen was awarded The Prix Oscar Peterson from the Montreal International Jazz Festival for her exceptional contributions to jazz in Canada. “Jensen’s formidable orchestra is the glistening sunlight, the tranquility and force of the ocean, and the majestic trees that her music imagines.”-Jazz Times Canadian Saxophonist and composer Christine Jensen has led a distinct voice to the creative jazz scene for the last twenty-five years with her large and small ensembles. She is released her third jazz orchestra album Harbour (2024) which follows previous releases Habitat (2013) and Treelines (2010). It features her Montreal-based orchestra, along with guest soloists NY-based Ingrid Jensen on trumpet and electronics, Gary Versace on piano, Chet Doxas on tenor saxophone, Jon Wikan on drums and Montreal-based Steve Raegele on guitar. This album captures over a decade of her compositions and commissions, with her sister’s improvisations infused throughout. “I think of this collection of songs as my commissioning series, with each piece marking time since the beginnings of life for my daughter Liv, who is now thirteen. I chose the title Harbour because I think of it as a place of shelter on the water, a respite before the new migrations that await on land. This ensemble of family and friends represents that feeling to me, as we all came out of so much turbulence to land together in a room, where my music could take flight. The musicians that I had the privilege to perform and record with took all this to another level and brought their own characters in through their masterful sounds and improvisations. This time around, I can’t be more thrilled with the magic that has surfaced, from the sculpting of forms to the performances that are so lovingly interpreted.”