Jessica Shand
14K WHITE GOLD CUSTOM
PURCHASED FROM FLUTISTRY
Originally from Denver, Colorado, Jessica Shand (she/her) is a performer-composer, multi-instrumentalist, researcher, and current Presidential Fellow at the interdisciplinary MIT Media Lab in the Opera of the Future group. Her work lies at the intersection of art and science, centering musical practices that critically examine socially constructed binaries and expand human creativity and expression. Current areas of interest include mathematical topology, human-computer interaction, speculative fiction, embodied cognition, and anything and everything related to her primary instrument, the flute.
In 2020, Jessica was one of the youngest individuals ever invited to speak at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Music Theory and American Musicological Society, where she presented original research on artificial creativity and improvising machines as part of a panel co-hosted by the Committee on the Status of Women and Queer Resources Group. Her undergraduate thesis, “Patterns, Play, and Processes: Sounding Topological Graph Theory” featured a collection of original, self-produced works inspired by themes of bending and deformation in mathematical topology, and earned her the 2022 Wister Prize for the most outstanding record in either mathematics or music at Harvard University.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jessica served as a human rights fellow with the Artistic Freedom Initiative, investigating artist censorship and persecution under authoritarian regimes and offering legal assistance to at-risk cultural workers. She also served as President of Harvard College Opera, one of only a handful of undergraduate-led opera companies in the world, during its all-virtual season, worked with the Advisory Board for the Arts, conducting extensive research on pandemic strategy for major arts and cultural organizations worldwide, and served as Director of Development for the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra.
As a flutist, Jessica has received recognition from organizations and ensembles worldwide, including first-prize awards in competitions hosted by the National Flute Association, NPR’s From the Top, National YoungArts Foundation, Music Teachers National Association, and more. For her work as a singer-songwriter, composer, and electronic musician, she has been a recipient of MIT’s jazz instrumental Emerson/Harris Fellowship, a resident artist at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, and a recipient of the Green Prize, Artist Development Fellowship, John Knowles Paine Fellowship, Davison Fellowship, Solomon Grant, and Hugh F. MacColl Prizes in composition at Harvard. She has performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Aspen Music Festival and School, Brattle Street Chamber Players, Harvard New Music Ensemble, National Youth Orchestra of the USA (NYO-USA), IAC World Youth Symphony Orchestra, Honor Orchestra of America, Denver Young Artists Orchestra, Pikes Peak Philharmonic, and more, championing and premiering dozens of brand-new musical works over the last six years.
Jessica’s mentors and influences include Claire Chase, Vijay Iyer, Esperanza Spalding, Tod Machover, Brook Ferguson, and many others. She studied with Paula Robison as part of the Harvard/New England Conservatory dual degree program from 2017 to 2022.
Jessica has been a Wm. S. Haynes Co. International Young Artist since 2016. For more, please visit www.jessicashand.com.