Jessica Hunt (she/her/hers) has been commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra (Climb), the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra (The Eagle Tree), the Gaudete Brass Quintet (seven works), Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, The Michigan Lighthouse Landmark Legacy Project, Access Contemporary Music, and many others. In addition to serving as the 2018 Boontling Community Fellow at the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music and as the 2017-18 Young Composer in Residence with the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, Hunt was awarded a Regents Fellowship at the University of Michigan.
Hunt’s music has been performed in concert by esteemed ensembles and performers such as the Chiara Quartet, CCM Chorale, Axiom Brass, the Calidore Quartet, Elise Eden, Kathryn Goodson, and R. Benjamin Dobey; recorded on the Pro Organo label; and broadcast on NPR’s nationally syndicated program Pipedreams hosted by Michael Barone, who characterized Hunt’s music as “quite engaging” and “joy-filled.” Her music for comedy and theater has been reviewed as “smart and fun” by TimeOut Chicago, and the Chicago Reader lauds that her “songs are creative crowd-pleasers.”
Hunt holds degrees from Columbia College Chicago (BM ‘09), DePaul University (MM ‘16), and the University of Michigan (DMA ’19). Her research interests include the phonetic and articulatory phenomena of sung text, harmonic vocabulary and syntax in musical theater, and championing the works of under-represented composers through creative analysis and curricular development.