Joan Jeanrenaud

Joan Jeanrenaud
With Kihnoua, 2008
Background information
Birth name	Joan Dutcher
Born	(1956-01-25) January 25, 1956 (age 61) Memphis, Tennessee
Genres	Avant-garde
Instruments	Cello
Years active	1978-present
Website	Official website

Joan Jeanrenaud, née Dutcher (born January 25, 1956), is an American cello player. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, she played with the Kronos Quartet from 1978 until 1999, when, after a sabbatical, she left to pursue a solo career and collaborations with other artists, in part due to being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She has staged and recorded solo performance pieces, playing the cello in tandem with electronic instruments. Her first solo album, Metamorphosis, was described by Greg Cahill in Strings as "visceral, hypnotic, and often compelling."

Jeanrenaud plays a Deconet, ca. 1750. A copy of the cello carved out of ice was used in her four-hour performance piece Ice Cello, a 2004 adaptation of Charlotte Moorman's Ice Music for London. In 2008, her album Strange Toys was nominated for a Grammy Award. Several tracks were recorded with PC Muñoz, with whom Jeanrenaud recorded a full album, Pop-Pop, in 2010, calling it "a pop record that wasn't actually pop."

She also has performed in collaborations with Larry Ochs' group Kihnoua at San Francisco's De Young Museum (2008).

She has performed in many film scores by composer William Susman and appears on the soundtrack CDs for Oil on Ice (2005), Fate of the Lhapa (2007) and Music for Moving Pictures (2009).

With Fred Frith and Maybe Monday