Biography
My performing and creative projects have taken me from the Barbican to the Adelaide Festival to Brits off Broadway New York. Here’s a short run down of my recent creative projects:
Jessica creates and performs genre-defying music theatre. Latest commissions and projects include Coming up for Air with composer Bernd Franke (Oper Leipzig 2025/6 season); Jephthah’s Daughter with composer Luke Styles (La Nuova Musica at Wigmore Hall); Disorderly House (Buxton International Opera Festival) and Fanny and Stella’s Last Day Out (RCM) both with composer Jasper Dommett; Barbara – La Solitude (Jermyn Street Theatre, La Barcarolle St Omer, Nevill Holt, Deal Festival); The People’s Cabaret with Luke Styles (Brighton, Norfolk and Norwich, and O. Festival Rotterdam); Voices of Power (Three Choirs Festival and The Philharmonia), also with Luke Styles; Film Scene Unseen with composer Joseph Atkins (ETO at Home and Royal and Derngate theatre); Cabaret Macabre (British Youth Music Theatre) with Joseph Atkins; (Dead) Funny Women (Lichfield Festival) where she is an associate artist. Other recent projects include Not Such Quiet Girls (Opera North and Leeds Playhouse), and All I Want is One Night (Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester), performed in London, Manchester and New York, where it was critic’s pick in the New York Times. Other writer/ performer credits include The Girl I Left Behind Me with Neil Bartlett (Opera North) and Pat Kirkwood is Angry (Royal Exchange Theatre), also both critic’s pick in the New York Times.
An album of La Solitude is being recorded with Resonus Classics, featuring the Solem Quartet, for release in summer 2026. Jessica is touring into 2026 with the Gavin Bryars Ensemble in a programme of Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen songs, called After the Rain, including performances at Kings Place and Café Oto. She also returns to Lichfield festival with La Solitude and After the Rain.
Longer version going back further, for those who are interested!
2026 projects include the libretto for Coming up for Air, composed by Bernd Franke, which premieres at Oper Leipzig in March. Other 2026 projects include After the Rain with the Gavin Bryars Ensemble at King’s Place and Lichfield Festival, La Solitude at Lichfield Festival, and the release of her album of the same name by Resonus Classics.
2023/4/5 performing/ writing projects included the libretto for Luke Styles' commission for La Nuova Musica, Jephthah’s Daughter, at the Wigmore Hall. She also collaborated on two new short operas with composer Jasper Dommett - Fanny and Stella's Last Day Out for the Royal College of Music, and Disorderly House for Buxton International Opera Festival (to be published by Ricordi). As associate artist at Lichfield Festival programmes included Nothing like a Dame and A History of Cabaret. Other projects included Barbara - La Solitude Deal Festival; (Dead) Funny Women Deal Festival; The Black Eagle Nevill Holt festival; Barbara - La Solitude La Barcarolle St Omer; Modern Nature - a celebration of Derek Jarman at the Barbican and Bold Tendencies; After the Rain Café Oto; Scene Unseen JW3; Girls will be Boys Ludlow English Song Festival.
2022/23 projects included (Dead) Funny Women Presteigne Festival, (originally commissioned by Lichfield Festival), The People's Cabaret and Forbidden Love at O festival Rotterdam, Brighton and Norfolk and Norwich festivals, her new piece with Joseph Atkins - Scene/ Unseen – ETO at Home and Royal and Derngate Theatre, and the world premiere of Voices of Power, written with composer Luke Styles for the Three Choirs Festival and the Philharmonia. She was also named associate artist at Lichfield Festival for the next three years.
2021's projects included The People's Cabaret - a new commission for Brighton Festival, with Norwich and Norfolk festival and O Festival Rotterdam (published by Belle Symphonie), (Dead) Funny Women - a new commission for Lichfield Festival, where she was artist in residence, and the book and lyrics for Cabaret Macabre - a new commission for BYMT, which she also directed, at the Bridewell Theatre.
2018-20 projects included Golden Elsie in Alone in Berlin for Royal and Derngate, Songs for our Times - a filmed concert for Lichfield Festival, Not Such Quiet Girls, commissioned by Opera North and Leeds Playhouse, Gerald Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest for Neue Oper Freiburg in Freiburg and Paris, On The Town for the Hyogo Performing Arts Centre Japan, and workshops for her new opera in development with the Royal Opera House.
2017/18 projects included her play All I Want is One Night, originally produced by the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester, with further performances at Wilton's Music Hall, the Hope Mill theatre Manchester and the Brits off Broadway Festival New York; a residency at Snape Maltings developing a new opera; the UK premiere of Sarah Kirkland Snider's song cycle Penelope with Psappha; a recording of WW1 songs for Enter the Peace Broker (Chrome Radio); her new CD All I Want is One Night - death and desire at the French cabaret (Chrome Media); Casting Ouch, a new cabaret with original songs by Jessica Walker and Joseph Atkins at Live at Zedel and the King's Head theatre; further cabaret appearances with Joseph Atkins at Live at Zedel, Roman River festival, Hargrave festival, Nottingham Theatre Royal and the Machynlleth Festival. She was an artist in residence at the 2018 Lichfield Festival.
2016 projects included All I Want is One Night for the Royal Exchange Theatre and The Rattler for Mahogany Opera Group.
2015 included Mercy and Grand - the Tom Waits project at the Adelaide Festival with Gavin Bryars, Unborn in America, by Luke Styles and Peter Cant, at The Vaults Festival, and the singer in Caryl Churchill's The Skriker with Royal Exchange Theatre and Manchester International Festival, recorded for BBC Radio 3.
2013/14 stage roles included Gwendolen in Gerald Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest (NI Opera), Nurse/ Harriet in Sunday in the Park with George (Theatre du Chatelet), Gloria, A Pig Tale, by HK Gruber with Mahogany Opera. Her cabaret opera - An Eye for an Eye - written with composer David Knotts, premiered at both the Bath and St Magnus music festivals.
From 2010-15 Jessica has toured The Girl I Left Behind Me, a solo piece devised by her and director Neil Bartlett, and commissioned by Opera North projects, to great critical acclaim. Performances included a week's residency at the Barbican Pit, the Purcell Room, Howard Assembly Rooms, Sage Gateshead, Brighton Theatre Royal, Aldeburgh Festival, Coutts Arts Festival, the Frome Festival, Buxton Festival, Lowry Salford Quays, The Stables, and Norfolk and Norwich Festival. The piece enjoyed a 3 week sell-out run at the 2013 festival at the 59E59 theatre New York, was published as a play script by Oberon Press, and was released in 2014 as a CD on the Original Cast Recordings label.
Conceived in 2012, Her solo show Pat Kirkwood is Angry, co-produced by Opera North, in association with Royal Exchange Theatre, and directed by Lee Blakeley, began life at the Manchester Royal Exchange studio and the Howard Assembly Rooms, touring until 2018. Performances included St James Theatre, Grassington Festival, Lichfield Festival, the Richard Burton Theatre, Cardiff and the main stage of the Royal Exchange. In June 2014 it went to the Brits off Broadway festival for a three-week run, in which it was Charles Isherwood's critics pick of the week in the New York Times.
Jessica's other concert engagements have included Love is a Drag at Grassington Festival, Peace Cabaret at Lichfield Festival. Brel, Brassens and Barbara at the Bath International Music Festival with Alasdair Nicolson. recitals at the Howard Assembly Rooms, Opera North - Recession Songs and Songs from the Left Bank - with Jim Holmes, Ligeti's Aventures - Nouvelles Aventures and the world premiere of Joanna Lee's song cycle, Elephant Woman, both with Psappha. She toured Mercy and Grand: the Tom Waits Project with Opera North throughout the UK and in Milan, a CD of which was released on the Gavin Bryars label.
Other projects have included Nerone in The Coronation of Poppea at the Kings Head, in a new version translated and directed by Mark Ravenhill, with jazz arrangements by Alex Silverman, and a revival of Mercy and Grand at St George's Hall, Bristol and the Spitalfields Winter Festival.