Janice Mautner Markham is a Los Angeles-based violinist, composer, theater artist and activist. She is a founding member of her global string ensemble, The JAC Trio, and klezmer-rock band Mostly Kosher. The UCLA Milken Center has sponsored multiple projects for Mostly Kosher, including a klezmer workshop as a prelude to the Jewish Music Festival in 2020 and the Secret Chord music series in 2022.
Theater and music have frequently gone hand in hand in Janice’s work, with numerous off-Broadway and regional theater credits to her name. She was understudy to The Klezmatics’ violinist Lisa Gutkin for the Broadway tour of Indecent at the Ahmanson Theatre, and was proud to participate in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association’s Weimar Cabaret performance, Musik! Fantasie! Revolution! The 2023/2024 season for Janice will include performances in San Antonio Texas, New Harmony, Indiana, Des Moines, Iowa, New York City and Palo Alto, California.
Mautner Markham is celebrating her third decade as performer and arts educator with Vox Box Arts Collective and directs the Jewish Youth Orchestra, a project of the Jewish Federation of San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys. She is proud to give back to her community, collaborating with Urban Voices Project and performing for Cafe Europa Holocaust survivor groups. Janice is a teaching artist and frequent performer at Skirball Cultural Center and is Artist-in-Residence at Holocaust Museum Los Angeles. Former musician residencies have included Pico Union Project (2015-2019) and The Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum (2005-2010).
The tour of the Violins of Hope in 2020 gave Janice the opportunity to play violins rescued from the Holocaust, as well as the honor of participating in a short documentary on the project sponsored by the Soraya Performing Arts Center. The official season of Violins of Hope opened with a mainstage performance featuring Itzhak Perlman and Mostly Kosher performing for the pre and post-concert receptions.
Janice credits much of her music evolution to her father, pianist Raymond Mautner (z”l), and violin teachers Harold Ayres (z”l), former concertmaster of the Minneapolis Symphony (Minnesota Orchestra) and Heiichiro Ohyama, former principal violist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
MA – Arizona State University
BFA – University of the Arts, Philadelphia
Fellowship: American Jewish University – Institute of Creativity, 2017
Guest lecturer: Gustavus Adolphus College, MN
