Jessica Carlton is a trumpet player and composer originally from Melbourne, currently living and working in Perth.
She has been nominated for prestigious awards including the Music Trust’s Freedman Jazz Fellowship in 2021 and the Bell Award’s Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year in 2015.
Jessica attended the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School and completed a Bachelor of Music Performance in jazz trumpet at Monash University in 2015. There she was awarded the Monash Jazz Prize in her second year for her composition ‘Not Alone’.
She went on to record her debut album under the same name that year. Carlton has been featured in the Melbourne International Women’s Jazz Festival, the Wangaratta Jazz Festival, and the Perth International Jazz Festival, and has performed extensively in venues and festivals across Australia.
She has experience as a music educator, teaching in primary schools, high schools, jazz programs, and at universities (including the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts). Jessica was recently involved in a chordless quartet album as a composer and performer, entitled Undeniable (2022).
Jessica received a scholarship to undertake postgraduate research at WAAPA under the supervision of Dr Jamie Oehlers and is due to complete this early 2024. She lives in Perth where she is studying, teaching, performing, and raising her daughter.