Praised for her “impressive clarity and color” by The New York Times, soprano Jessica Petrus is thrilled to join Blue Heron this season. Most recently she was the featured soprano soloist for the Musicians of the Old Post Road’s holiday concerts in December, 2021. During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, Jessica collaborated with composer Susan Kander to record her art song demo album First Person, Second Person, Third Person Singular. Jessica can also be heard as the soprano soloist on Kander’s recording of A Garden’s Time Piece on her album Hermestänze (MSR Classics), about which Gramophone  wrote “A Garden’s Time Piece … is a lovely conceit…. Ashworth and Jessica Petrus play and sing expressively and knowingly throughout.” In 2016, Jessica performed Unsuk Chin’s Akrostischon-Wortspiel with Cantata Profana in New York City, where she “sang beautifully, with strict control and expressive musicality, telling each phantom story with charming resolve” (I Care If You Listen). Jessica teaches voice privately in the Boston area. She graduated from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music in voice and from the University of Michigan in Voice Performance and Education. When not singing or teaching, she can be found cooking in her kitchen, working on her next venture as a postpartum doula, or spending time with her husband, Evan, and their young children, Will, June, and Oscar.