Jessica Shand, an award-winning flute player who graduated from Discovery Canyon Campus High School in 2017, went on to attend Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is now pursuing a doctorate at Brown University. She’ll release her first album, “Transmutations,” which features digitally altered versions of her flute playing, on Bandcamp Feb. 21. Proceeds will serve as a fundraiser for LGBTQ people across the U.S. Read More Entertainment
She’s the flute player that could, and did.
Since graduating from Discovery Canyon Campus High School in 2017, Jessica Shand, an award-winning flutist and composer, has been busy. She’s earned a bachelor’s in math and music from Harvard University, a master’s in media arts and sciences from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is pursuing a doctorate in music and multimedia composition at Brown University.
Along the way she’s explored classical, jazz and electronic music, playing as a soloist and in ensembles, creating intermedia installations and original scores for video game and film.
Phew. And now she’s about to release her first album, “Transmutations.” The 12-track album will be available on Bandcamp on Feb. 21. Preorders are now available. The $10 album also will serve as a fundraiser for LGBTQ people across the U.S. Go online to jessicashand.bandcamp.com.
The album is based on research she did as an MIT graduate student, as she experimented with transforming her flute sounds through auditory perception.
“What are the bounds between sound and perception?” Shand said from Providence, R.I., where she now lives.
“What are the thresholds between perceptions of different sounds? Like when does a flute sound stop being a flute sound and start being something else? The premise is flutes warping into other things, like the sound of crickets or bubbles or different instruments or the sound of a ticking clock.”
The tracks were done through digital signal processing. She first recorded herself playing a technique on her flute, then processed it electronically.
“There are some tracks where the flute sound is more apparent than others,” Shand said. “For me the real excitement lies in opening up the imagination, not focusing on the instrument or the source of the sound, and recognizing it all comes from flute sounds, but marveling at the fact that when you pair that instrument with electronics it opens up an infinite space of infinite sounds. It’s very experimental and conceptual. It’s not easy listening.”
Shand’s flute playing earned many awards and much attention in the Pikes Peak region. She was the principal flute/piccolo in the Colorado Springs Youth Symphony and also won the group’s Young Artist Solo Competition. She was principal flute in the Colorado All-State Orchestra Symphony and principal flute of the Colorado University High School Honor Band.
She was selected for the Honor Orchestra of America and won a National Young Arts Foundation Merit Award in the music division. And in her senior year of high school she was invited for the second time to participate in Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America.
“In high school my dream in life was to be a principal orchestral flutist and I was in that classical world and I still adore that music,” Shand said. “And I’m now in a position where I’m forging my own path and figuring out what that looks like. I’m trying to bring my interests in math and science into the music. It’s a different perspective now but it still feels like everything that was there still feels so important.”
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