Jessica Meyer

With playing that is “fierce and lyrical” and works that are “other-worldly” (The Strad) and “evocative” (New York Times), Jessica Meyer is a versatile composer and violist whose passionate musicianship radiates accessibility and emotional clarity. Her first composer/performer portrait album recently debuted at #1 on the Billboard traditional classical chart, where “knife-edge anticipation opens on to unexpected, often ecstatic musical realms, always with a personal touch and imaginatively written for the instruments” (Gramophone Magazine).

Meyer’s compositions viscerally explore the wide palette of emotionally expressive colors available to each instrument while using traditional and extended techniques inspired by her varied experiences as a contemporary and period instrumentalist. Since embarking on her composition career only five years ago, premieres have included performances by Grammy-winning vocal ensembles Roomful of Teeth and Vox Clamantis, the American Brass Quintet, cellist Amanda Gookin for her Forward Music Project, Sybarite 5, PUBLIQuartet, NOVUS NY of Trinity Wall Street, and a work for A Far Cry commissioned by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

As part of the residency, Ms. Meyer lived in the museum itself for a week to immerse herself in the creatively curated life and collected art of Mrs. Gardner to find inspiration for the work. Past orchestral performances of her work include engagements with the North Carolina Symphony, the Nu Deco Ensemble in Miami, Vermont Symphony, Sinfonia Gulf Coast, and the Studio Orchestra at Peabody Conservatory. Upcoming orchestral engagements include performances by the Phoenix Symphony, a concerto for herself with the League of Composers Orchestra to be premiered in Miller Theatre, and interactive performances in Carnegie Hall as part of their nationwide Link Up Program.

Recent chamber works include commissions by the Juilliard School for a project with the Historical Performance Program, and by the Lorelei Ensemble to create a song cycle based on the poetry of Sappho which received the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award from Chorus America. Highlights of next season include being Composer-in-Residence at Spoleto USA, a premiere at the National Gallery of Art, and works for the St. Lawrence String Quartet, flutist Allison Loggins-Hull for her “Diametrically Composed” project at National Sawdust, and for Sandbox Percussion with vocal duo Two Cities called “20 Minutes of Action”. This work will include quotes from Chanel Miller’s Victim Impact Statement that was read aloud to her attacker, Brock Turner, during the Stanford Rape Case Trial, alongside statements that both men and women hear from an early age that contribute to the rape culture in America.