About

About

Jessica Shand is a performer-composer and researcher whose background in mathematics informs her vision of music as a practice of radical imagination and multi-sensory exploration. Having fallen in love with the Western romantic and impressionist repertoires first as a young ballet dancer, she went from playing the flute in her school and local youth ensembles to winning major solo competitions and performing with orchestras worldwide. Now, her original work calls on an eclectic set of musical languages passed down to her by cherished mentors and influences, from classical and jazz idioms to electroacoustic music and creative improvisation. 

In 2022, Jessica graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and music, earning the Wister Prize for the most outstanding record in either field. Simultaneously enrolled in the highly selective joint program with the New England Conservatory, she studied classical flute performance with the internationally renowned soloist Paula Robison and expanded her musical vocabulary under the mentorship of Claire Chase, Vijay Iyer, and Esperanza Spalding at Harvard and later Miguel Zenón and others at MIT and Berklee. At 20, she became one of the youngest individuals ever invited to speak at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Music Theory and American Musicological Society, where she presented original research on artificial creativity and improvising machines.

Hailing from Denver, Colorado, Jessica is currently based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she has been developing her creative practice and cultivating an interdisciplinary body of work as a graduate researcher at the MIT Media Lab. Most recently, she was named to the inaugural class of the Steve Jobs Archive Fellowship. She has been a Wm. S. Haynes Co. International Young Artist since 2016. 

Contact

jessica [dot] shand [at] gmail [dot] com

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MS / Research Assistant (MIT Media Lab)
Cambridge, MA
2022-Present

Harvard University
BA in Mathematics and Music (Highest Honors)
NEC Dual Degree Program
Secondary Field in Computer Science
Cambridge, MA
2017-2022

Teaching & Advocacy

Artistic Freedom Initiative
Human Rights Research Fellow (2021)

Harvard University Gender Inclusivity in Math
Co-President (2021-22)

Global Math Circle
Instructor (2020-21)

Colorado Springs Teen Court Association
Student Defense Attorney (2013-17)

Selected Arts Leadership & Ensembles

MIT Emerson-Harris Fellows AMP Jazz Ensemble
Performer-Composer (2022-24)

Density 2036
Curatorial Assistant (2022-23)

Songwrights Apothecary Lab 
Performer-Composer & Researcher (2022)

Harvard College Opera
President (2020-21)
VP of Management (2019-20)

Advisory Board for the Arts
Research Analyst (2020-21)

National Youth Orchestra of the USA
Alumni Mentor (2020 & 21)
Flutist (2016 & 17) [Performance Video]

Other: American Repertory Theatre, Performer (’23); MIT CMS Jazz Combos (’22 & ’23); Interlochen Center for the Arts, Guest Artist (‘22); Lowell House Opera (‘22); Harvard New Music Ensemble (‘21-22); Harvard Arts FIRST Festival, Student Producer (‘19-22); Brattle Street Chamber Players, Concerto Soloist (‘19); International Contemporary Ensemble (‘19); New Amsterdam Records, Financial Assistant (‘19); Aspen Music Festival & School (‘18); Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (‘17-18); New England Conservatory Woodwind Quintet (‘17-18); Colorado Young Musicians Foundation, Soloist (‘13-17); Denver Young Artists Orchestra (‘15-17); Pikes Peak Philharmonic, Concerto Soloist (‘16); Honor Orchestra of America, Principal (‘16); Colorado Springs Youth Symphony Association (‘12-15)

Selected Awards & Fellowships

Steve Jobs Archive Fellowship
Steve Jobs Archive (2023-24)

Genre-Fluid Composers Lab
New Amsterdam Records (2024)

MIT Presidential Scholarship
MIT Media Lab (2022-23)

Wister Prize in Mathematics/Music
Harvard University Faculty of Arts & Sciences (2022)

Green Prize in Composition
Harvard University Department of Music (2022)

Public Service Fellowship
Artistic Freedom Initiative
Harvard University Institute of Politics (2021)

Dean’s Scholarship
New England Conservatory (2017-22)

Other: Emerson-Harris Fellowship in Jazz at MIT (‘22-24); Density 2036, Fellow (‘23-24); Council for the Arts at MIT, Arts Project Grant (‘23); Harvard Department of Music, Davison Fellowship (‘22 & ‘19); U.S. Rhodes Scholarship, Finalist (‘21); Jefferson Symphony International Concerto Competition, Second Prize (‘20); Hugh F. MacColl Prize in Composition (‘20); Harvard Office for the Arts, Artist Development Fellowship (‘20); NPR’s From the Top, Soloist (‘19 & ‘16); National YoungArts Foundation, Finalist (‘17); National Flute Association High School Soloist Competition, Winner (‘17); The Colorado Springs Gazette, Best and Brightest Class of 2017 (‘17); Academy School District 20 Education Foundation Scholarship (‘17); Music Teachers National Association Senior Woodwinds Competition, Winner (‘16)

Conferences & Publications

Speculating Futures of Scientific Discovery through a Biotic Game
W. Yan*, J. Shand*, D. Zhu*, & W. Freudenheim*
Unfiguring: Experiments in the practice of science and art
March 2024

Creative Text-to-Audio Generation via Synthesizer Programming
M. Cherep*, N. Singh*, & J. Shand
37th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS)
Machine Learning for Audio Workshop [Website] [Poster]
December 2023

Collaborative Synthscapes from Words
N. Singh*, M. Cherep*, & J. Shand*
37th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS)
Creative AI Track [Video]
December 2023

MOTHERBIRD for flute, live electronics, and artificial life simulation
8th International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation (TENOR)
J. Shand, M. Cherep, & J. Armitage
May 2023 [Performance Video]

Patterns, Play, and Processes: Sounding Topological Graph Theory
Harvard University Departments of Mathematics & Music
Undergraduate Thesis 
March 2022 [Text] 

Artificial Creativity: Improvising Computers and the Listening Subject
43rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Music Theory & American Musicological Society
November 2020 [Text]

*denotes equal contribution