Soprano Jessica Gould has been noted for “a dramatic intensity that honored the texts” (The New York Times), “gorgeous melismatic singing" (Voce di Meche), “beautiful interpretation” (The Lute Society of America Quarterly), and "an electrifying voice" (Musicweb International). Her recordings for MV Cremona include I Viaggi di Caravaggio  and I Diletti di Mazzarino. Additional CDs include projects with New World Records, Naxos, and Da Vinci Classics. Radio broadcasts include WQXR, NPR, WPBR, MPR, and WKCR, among others.

 

Recital appearances include guest artist with lutenist Nigel North on the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Faculty Series and the Rowan University College of Performing Arts, L'Église de St. Jean Baptiste in Montréal and Villa Finaly in Florence with Pascal Valois, early romantic guitar, and at Palazzo Grimani on the Musiche dei Grimani series in Venice and the Cappella di San Luca of the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence with lutenist Diego Cantalupi. Previous soloist appearances as chamber musician include La Serenissima Festival of Carnegie Hall with L'Aura Soave Cremona, the Cassatt Quartet at the Guggenheim Museum Works & Process Series, the Clarion Society, and the Four Nations Ensemble, among others in the United States, and abroad with L’Aura Soave Cremona at the Teatro all’Antica di Sabbioneta, Villa Finaly – La Chancellerie des Universités de la Sorbonne (Florence), the Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone (Rome) the Great Synagogue of Florence, Palazzo Bardi, the Istituto Francese of Florence, and with Musica Ricercata at the Library of San Marco and Palazzo Davanzati (Florence). With L'Aura Soave Cremona she has also performed at the Teatro all'Antico di Sabbioneta, Palazzo Gondi in Florence and the Palazzo Ducale of Sassuolo. Upcoming performances in Europe include the Festival de l'Unité d'Art Sacré de Gosnay in France.

 

As Founder and Artistic Director of Salon/Sanctuary Concerts, her original programming spanning a millennium of music has been praised as “impeccably curated” by Time Out New York, “highly original” by The New York Times, and “imaginative” by New York Magazine. Honored with a residency at Villa Finaly, the Florentine home of the Sorbonne, she is tasked with researching, programming, and performing original concerts which explore the ties between Italy and France from the Baroque to the early Romantic era. She is the only American ever invited to create programs for four notable Florentine institutions: Palazzo Bardi, Palazzo Gondi, Palazzo Guicciardini, and L’Associazione per Boboli.

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In 2019, she was invited by the Museum of Palazzo Grimani and the Scuola di Musica Antica Venezia to embark on an ongoing collaborative residency in order to conceive and present original programs reflecting the rich musical history of the Venetian Baroque, and the extraordinary contributions made by the Grimani family in various generations to that history.

 

In 2017, she was honored with an invitation to present and perform her original program From Ghetto to Cappella  on the La Serenissima festival of Carnegie Hall. An exploration of the cross-fertilization of Jewish and Catholic cultures in Counter-Reformation Italy, the program had been previously presented in Italy by the Great Synagogue of Florence and by the Teatro all'Antica di Sabbioneta, one of three remaining Renaissance theaters in the world today, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Her program exploring the myth of Dido within the context of colonialism in the Maghreb, Carthage Conquer'd, was included in the programming schedules of both the Sorbonne and The Season of NYU Villa La Pietra. From Ghetto to Palazzo, her program dedicated to the groundbreaking Jewish composer Salomone Rossi, has been adopted by numerous institutions, including the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, Temple Emanu-El, Congregation Shearith Israel, and the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

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Her original program dedicated to Thomas Jefferson, Maria Cosway, and the Separation of Church and State, More Between Heaven and Earth, received the co-sponsorship of two notable American institutions – the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, of which Jefferson served as President and founded the year he was born, and Fraunces Tavern, where Jefferson worked as the first Secretary of State when the building served as the headquarters of the administration of George Washington when New York was the nation's capital. An interdisciplinary program with a script by Erica Gould based on the letters of Jefferson and Cosway and Jefferson's writings on Church/State Separation, the production has boasted various acting luminaries in its leading roles, notably film star Matthew Modine, theater luminary Campbell Scott, Jonathan Cake of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and stage legend Kathleen Chalfant.

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Her prolific original research projects have attracted support from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Florence Gould Foundation (no relation), the Charles Schwartz Foundation for Music, the Victor Herbert Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the Fraunces Tavern Museum, the Church of St. Jean Baptiste, the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center, NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, Villa Finaly – La Chancellerie des Universités de la Sorbonne, and many other notable foundations and institutions.

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Jessica is a native New Yorker and holds a Bachelor's degree from Macalester College in Art History, Political Science, and Music. With a background in the visual arts, she attended Rhode Island School of Design, Parsons School of Design, and the National Academy of Design as a teenager. She can often be found writing program notes, drawing pictures, swimming for hours in the nearest body of water, learning new languages, and/or reading lots of history books while on a plane to Italy.