Urban geographical environments, city sounds, and nostalgia influence Jennifer Jolley’s work. Rather than composing hyper-complex inventions that are too obtuse for most concertgoers, she seeks music that punctuates and enhances the beauty of simple forms.

Her work has been commissioned and performed by Kelley O’Connor and the Bard Orchestra under the direction of Nathan Madsen, Xavier University under the direction of Matthew Westgate, concert:nova, AccentX, MusicX, CCM Chamber Players, Lake Champlain Waldorf School, Midwest Composers Symposium, New Music Hartford, Ottawa New Music Creators, Performance and Time Arts, University of Texas at Austin, and the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble. Jennifer was recently awarded a scholarship from the Presser Foundation, which will allow her to study with opera composer Michael Ching. As a winner of the CCM 2011 Orchestral Composition Competition, the CCM Philharmonia premiered her new orchestra piece, Le monde du silence in April 2012 under the direction of Mark Gibson.

Jennifer also authors “Why Compose When You Can Blog?”, a web log about contemporary composing. She currently teaches orchestration and composition lessons at the University of Cincinnati and music theory at Northern Kentucky University. For more information, please visit www.jenniferjolley.com