Jessica Catron’s musical adventures include touring, performing, and recording with a diverse list of artists including Carla Bozulich, Harold Budd, Nels Cline, Devotchka, FUN, Trevor Hall, Mike Kelley, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Dave Matthews, Sheila Nicholls, Pauline Oliveros, Linda Ronstadt, Spiritualized, James Tenney, Corin Tucker, Vitamin String Quartet, VOCO w/ Moira Smiley, Scott Weiland, Emily Wells, and Wilco. Jessica has appeared on The Tonight Show, the NBC Music Video Awards, Coachella Music Festival, KPFK’s Global Village, KUSC’s Arts Alive, and has been a soloist for feature films Mean Creek, The Strangers, The Covenant, and Levity.

Always interested in creative approaches to sound-making, Jessica was invited to be the first distinguished musical-artist-in-residence at the UCLA Hammer Museum (Los Angeles) for an 8-month residency where she created sound installations and performance art inspired by the museum’s collection of Ed Ruscha works, and curated weekly chamber music performances at the museum.

As a teaching artist, she worked for YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), an El Sistema-inspired partnership of the Harmony Project and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. During her 8 years at YOLA, she worked with four youth orchestras and over 50 cello students in both group and private lessons. Additionally, Jessica has taught music workshops at the University of Auckland (NZ), Universidad de Bogota (Colombia), Western Front (Vancouver, BC), University of Nebraska, Cornish College (Seattle), University of New Mexico, Lake Tahoe Unified Schools (CA), Port Chester School District (NY), Community Music Works (RI), and the California State Summer School for the Arts.

Currently, Jessica directs and is lead teacher for Grow Music Missoula, which she founded in 2016 and now serves over 80 young people in Missoula. She co-founded The Receptionists string duo and writes music and sings with her avant-folk band Missincinatti. Recent projects have included Open Air‘s sound-artist-in-residence at the Rattlesnake Creek Dam, creating a place-based composition from field recordings made at the now demolished historic location and composer-in-residence for “New Songs for Butte Mining Camp,” at the Silver Bow Archives in Butte, funded through a Montana Cultural Trust Grant.

Outside of music, Jessica is raising two kids with her sweetie, Jeremy. They enjoy family game nights, traveling, making tacos, caring for six hens and two cats, sauntering in the woods, floating rivers, camping, primitive skills-building, spending time with extended family, and giving group hugs.