Recent winner of the 2023 American Prize for Shorter Choral Works Division, Jessica French is a Seattle-based composer specializing in choral music, both sacred and secular. Her works have been commissioned and performed by various ensembles including the BBC Singers, the St. Olaf Cantorei and Orchestra; the St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys (NYC), the Choir of Trinity Church Wall Street (NYC), Seattle Pro Musica, Northwest Boychoir, Seattle Girls Choir, and Choral Arts Northwest. Most recently, she was commissioned by the American Guild of Organists to compose two separate works for their 2022 National Convention in Seattle. Her music has been performed in venues and churches across the U.S, including Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, St. John the Divine and Trinity Wall Street in NYC, the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Houston, St. James Cathedral in Seattle, the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City, the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist in Savannah, Georgetown University in Washington D.C., Harvard University in Cambridge, and at the Oregon Bach Festival in Eugene. Internationally, her music has been performed in Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Japan, and the U.K., and has been featured on various broadcasts, including the St. Olaf Christmas Festival, Pipedreams, and With Heart and Voice. 

Jessica has a rare ability called synesthesia, in which various senses are linked to one another, mainly in the form of colors associated with notes, timbres, and words. This ability lends a unique voice to her compositional style, which has been described as having “lyrical, sweeping lines…deeply impassioned…atmospheric…shimmering harmonies.”  Jessica’s awards include winning the 2023 American Prize for the Shorter Choral Works Division, Honorable Mention in the 2023 ACDA Focus Price, being a finalist for the American Prize in multiple years, the ASCAP Plus Award, and the 2020 AGO/ECS Publishing Award in Choral Composition, in which her piece was premiered at the 2022 AGO National Convention. Her compositions are available through The French Press, MusicSpoke, and E.C. Schirmer as part of the Dale Warland Choral Series. Her piece “The Oxen” was recently published in Carols for Choirs 6 published by Oxford University Press. In addition, fifteen of her works have been endorsed by Project : Encore and included in their Catalog of Contemporary Choral Music.

Jessica received her foundational training in music at the Madeleine Choir School in Salt Lake City, Utah. She received a Bachelor of Music degree in Organ Performance from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and a Master of Music degree in Organ Performance from Yale University. After moving to the Seattle area in 2011, Jessica refocused her musical efforts toward composition, and has composed and arranged nearly thirty choral works during that period.