About

Jessica T. Carter (b. 1992) is a composer, violinist, mezzo-soprano, and educator from Indiana whose music has been described as “evocative” (Aspire Magazine) and “lyrical” (Apricity Magazine). Specializing in concert music, film scoring, and musical theatre, her work seeks to bridge vitriol and compassion through empathy — illuminating the experiences of marginalized children while deepening the universal understanding of the marginalized adult.

Carter is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Craig and Carol Kapson Bicentennial Scholarship in Music Composition (2018, 2019), winner of the 2020 Indiana University South Bend Symphonic Composition Competition with her cello concerto Rancor and Triumph, and finalist for the 2023 Ravinia Music Festival for the work Shadows and the 2024 American Prize in Composition for the work Forgotten Royalty. Her works have been commissioned by the South Bend Symphony Orchestra, Crossing Borders Music, Castle of Our Skins, Trio Village, and Ensemble CONCEPT/21, among others.

Her music has been performed internationally, including most notably the 2023 Brazilian premiere of Rancor and Triumph at the Tonal Composers Festival. She was awarded a fellowship with the MusicaNova Orchestra  (Phoenix, AZ) under maestro Warren Cohen, and has held residencies with Lunenburg Academy for Music Performance (Nova Scotia), and the Visby International Centre for Composers (Sweden). In 2025, she was selected as a featured composer for the Fusion Film Score Festival in Greece.

Her creative and academic contributions include her published groundbreaking research, Concert Music of the Civil Rights Movement: Uncovering the Erasure of Black American Composers in the United States (2020), her debut EP Memories (2020), and most recently, the publication of her piece STORM by Rising Tide Press (2025).

She has attended festivals including Ravinia, Vail, Atlantic Music Festival, Walden School, Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival, and IR-CAM’s ManiFest in Paris. She has worked with composers Marilyn Shrude, David Ludwig, Clara Iannotta, Augusta Read Thomas, Dinuk Wijeratne, and Billy Childs. Carter holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Bethel College and a Master of Music in Music Composition from Indiana University South Bend, under the tutelage of Dr. Jorge Muñiz.