Jessica Curran

Position
Assistant Professor
Affiliated Departments

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Jessica Curran is an award-winning, multifaceted composer and performer. She has won awards as a jazz composer and vocal improviser, composes pop music, and is an assistant professor at Berklee College of Music. Her more popular work with French composer Ariel T can be heard in Amazon Prime’s 2022 Show, Prisma. Some of her accolades include winning the ASCAP 2022 Young Jazz Composers Award and the 2018 John Lennon Songwriting Contest in Jazz.

As a vocalist, Curran is a skilled performer in multiple contexts, just as easily improvising tunes from the Great American Songbook as wordlessly singing over complex Brazilian choreography. Her own compositions highlight both her vocal range and detail-oriented arranging prowess. She is frequently commissioned for her musical and lyrical abilities. Notably, Curran was asked to musically interpret the Nobel Prize in Economics for Stockholm's Nobel Museum in 2016. Her debut album, Here, gained the attention of DownBeat Magazine, and its final track, “Weightless” won the Grand Prize in Jazz in the 2018 John Lennon Songwriting Contest.

Currently, Curran is focused on Caio e Jess, a duo project with Brazilian guitarist Caio Afiune. It uniquely blends their backgrounds in Brazilian music, pop, and jazz to create organic and lush compositions. Currently, they are gearing up to release their debut full-length album, Encontro das Aguas, featuring some of the finest musicians from around the globe including guests such as Laura Perrudin, Marissol Mwaba, Rafael Barata, and Henrique Eisenmann.

Awards
  • 2021 ASCAP's Young Jazz Composer Award recipient
  • 2018 John Lennon Songwriting Contest winner in jazz