Jessica Pearce
Adjunct Instructor of Horn
Jessica is Adjunct Instructor of Horn at Illinois Wesleyan University, her alma mater,
as well as Purdue University. She is pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Horn
Performance and Literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and works
as the horn studio teaching assistant to Professor Bernhard Scully. Leading up to
this appointment Jessica worked as a freelancer and private teacher in the Chicago
area from 2011-2015. Jessica is also a student of Jim Pugh, with whom she studies
jazz improvisation.
Jessica plays Assistant Principal and Utility Horn with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra
and Second Horn with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony. She has also performed with Chicago
Jazz Philharmonic, the Peoria Symphony, the Gil Evans Project, Chicago Philharmonic
Orchestra, the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Chicago, the Southwest Michigan
Symphony, da Corneto Opera Company, the Chicago Composers Orchestra, the Oistrach
Symphony Orchestra, the New Millennium Orchestra of Chicago, and the Chicago Jazz
Orchestra. Jessica is an active chamber musician and soloist; she currently plays
horn with Transit Brass and the UIUC Graduate Brass Quintet. In November of 2013 she
performed the Richard Strauss Horn Concerto No. 1 with the Midwest Philharmonic Orchestra.
Jessica earned a bachelor’s degree in music performance from Illinois Wesleyan University
where she studied with Christine Worthing. After finishing her bachelors she studied
with Adam Unsworth and Bryan Kennedy at the University of Michigan for her masters
in horn performance. Jessica has also studied with Neil Kimel of the Lyric Opera of
Chicago and David Griffin of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.