Biography
Jessica is a performer and teacher based out of central Illinois. She has been Instructor of Horn at Eastern Illinois University since 2018, and her duties include teaching horn, brass methods, and music appreciation courses. In addition to teaching at Eastern Illinois, she performs with the EIU Faculty Brass Quintet and EIU Faculty Wind Quintet. She was Adjunct Instructor of Horn at Illinois Wesleyan University, her alma mater, from 2016-2019.
Jessica is a founding member of the chamber ensemble Calypsus Brass. Calypsus Brass is a groundbreaking musical group founded by five women who earned a doctoral degree in music, the first of its kind. Calypsus Brass is committed to prioritizing recording and performing works of historically marginalized composers to uplift the highest quality of music. To further this mission, Calypsus Brass is proud to be the Ensemble in Residence for Rising Tide Music Press, an organization that publishes and promotes BBIA (Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian) musicians in their 10 years of professional-level work as composers and arrangers.
In 2018 Jessica completed a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Horn Performance and Literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During this degree she studied horn with Bernhard Scully and also studied jazz improvisation with Jim Pugh. Her dissertation project was titled "Jazz Influence on Unaccompanied Horn Literature: A Guide to Performing Solo Works by Douglas Hill, David Amram, and Dana Wilson."
Prior to working on her doctorate, Jessica worked as a freelancer and private teacher in the Chicago area from 2011-2015.
Jessica plays Assistant Principal and Utility Horn with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and Second Horn with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony. She has also performed with the Quad City Symphony, Peoria Symphony, Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, the Gil Evans Project, Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra, the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Chicago, the Southwest Michigan Symphony, da Corneto Opera Company, Millikin-Decatur Symphony, Sinfonia da Camera, and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra.
Jessica is a founding member of the chamber ensemble Calypsus Brass. Calypsus Brass is a groundbreaking musical group founded by five women who earned a doctoral degree in music, the first of its kind. Calypsus Brass is committed to prioritizing recording and performing works of historically marginalized composers to uplift the highest quality of music. To further this mission, Calypsus Brass is proud to be the Ensemble in Residence for Rising Tide Music Press, an organization that publishes and promotes BBIA (Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian) musicians in their 10 years of professional-level work as composers and arrangers.
In 2018 Jessica completed a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Horn Performance and Literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During this degree she studied horn with Bernhard Scully and also studied jazz improvisation with Jim Pugh. Her dissertation project was titled "Jazz Influence on Unaccompanied Horn Literature: A Guide to Performing Solo Works by Douglas Hill, David Amram, and Dana Wilson."
Prior to working on her doctorate, Jessica worked as a freelancer and private teacher in the Chicago area from 2011-2015.
Jessica plays Assistant Principal and Utility Horn with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and Second Horn with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony. She has also performed with the Quad City Symphony, Peoria Symphony, Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, the Gil Evans Project, Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra, the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Chicago, the Southwest Michigan Symphony, da Corneto Opera Company, Millikin-Decatur Symphony, Sinfonia da Camera, and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra.
Primary Teachers:
Education
D.M.A. University of Illinois, 2018
M.M. University of Michigan, 2011
B.M. Illinois Wesleyan University, 2009
- University of Illinois: Bernhard Scully
- University of Michigan: Adam Unsworth and Bryan Kennedy
- Illinois Wesleyan University: Christine Janicki
- Neil Kimel of the Lyric Opera of Chicago
- David Griffin of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Education
D.M.A. University of Illinois, 2018
M.M. University of Michigan, 2011
B.M. Illinois Wesleyan University, 2009
