Jennifer Smith, principal viola of the String Orchestra of the Rockies, lives in Great Falls where she maintains a large private studio of violin and viola students. For 17 years she was violist of the Cascade Quartet and principal viola of the Great Falls Symphony. A frequent performer throughout Montana, she is also faculty at the Red Lodge Music Festival, plays in the Big Sky Festival Orchestra, and performs with the Chanticleer Quartet each August in Indiana. In the summer of 2008 she and her husband, writer Scott Friskics, were the recipients of the Artist *Wilderness* Connection program’s artist-in-residency grant. The result is their highly successful interactive performance piece, Crossing Boundaries: Musings on Bach in the Backcountry, which explores the place of wilderness in contemporary society through written word and music for solo viola. Smith has performed internationally, premiered Dan Bukvich’s Viola Concerto with the Great Falls Symphony in 2003, been published in the American String Teacher magazine and is a past-president of the Montana chapter of the American String Teachers Association (ASTA). Her education includes the Cleveland Institute of Music, Yale University, and Peabody Conservatory with teachers Heidi Castleman, Karen Tuttle, Jesse Levine and William Lincer. She is the proud mother of an active seven-year-old son, Colin.