For a composer who recently premiered a work inspired by the first all-female spacewalk, the coming year looks equally expansive: new commissions, an Italian residency and a digital humanities project at her home institution in the Bronx. Dr. Jennifer Jolley, who chairs the music department at Lehman College, is carrying momentum from a summer teaching stint into a fall defined by premieres, festival appearances and archival research.
Composer, conductor and Lehman College music chair continues work across the U.S. and abroad
I am honored to be part of a growing number of women composers who are making their mark on new opera and classical music. ”— Dr. Jennifer Jolley
NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, October 20, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Dr. Jennifer Jolley, composer, conductor, 2023 Fulbright Scholar, Chair of the Department of Music and Associate Professor at Lehman College, is beginning the 2026-27 academic year with several new compositions, performances, residencies and research projects underway.
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The season’s early highlight came from a collaboration with the Florida State University Wind Ensemble, which gave the world premiere of her new work, The Space Coast, scored for wind ensemble and soprano. That piece draws from her forthcoming opera, Spacewalk, a seven-vignette telling of the first all-female spacewalk. Two additional commissions are in progress, including one that pairs hornist Steven Cohen with tubist and music educator Genevieve Clarkson.
Over the summer, Jolley joined the faculty of the Composer’s Sandbox Summer Intensive at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. The two-week program, held May 31-June 14, paired early-career composers with composition faculty and members of Grammy Award-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird, with participant works performed and recorded at the end of the session.
Looking ahead, Jolley heads to Avaloch Farm Music Institute for a residency, then on to Texas: from March 2-4, 2027, she serves as distinguished guest composer at the University of Texas at San Antonio’s NuMu ’27 new music festival, where her works are slated for chamber, choral, band and orchestral performances. In May 2027, she travels to Alba, Italy, for the 2027 Alba Music Festival Composition Program, running May 22-31; applications for that program close Dec. 15, 2026. June brings a premiere in Miami during the first week of the month.
At Lehman College, Jolley has been accepted as a CUNY Summer 2026 Archives & Open Knowledge Faculty Fellow. Her research project focuses on digitally encoding the Deborah Pacini Hernandez Music Collection to make the materials more accessible for study. That work extends her 2023 Fulbright in Egypt and a 2025 return to Cairo, where she presented on digital archiving and music preservation.
“I am honored to be part of a growing number of women composers who are making their mark on new opera and classical music,” said Dr. Jennifer Jolley. “My work draws toward subjects that are political and even provocative because music can be a nonviolent voice that inspires healthy debate and insight. In our tumultuous society, I believe that is necessary.”
Beyond her academic post, Jolley sits on the Board of Directors of New Music USA and serves on the advisory panel for Music Resurgence Group.
To learn more about Jolley, please visit www.jenniferjolley.com/. To connect with her on LinkedIn, visit www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-jolley/. For media inquiries please contact Skylar Peterson at speterson@tempo-comms.com or (774) 571-1357.
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About Jennifer Jolley
Jennifer Jolley is a composer, conductor and professor whose works have been commissioned and performed by ensembles worldwide, including the Dallas Winds, Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Central Ohio Symphony, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and Quince Ensemble. Her music has been featured at venues including Carnegie Hall, the Rivera Court at the Detroit Institute of Arts and Žofín Palace.
Jolley received degrees from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. She is Chair of the Department of Music and Associate Professor at Lehman College in the Bronx and was a 2023 Fulbright Scholar.
Skylar Peterson
Tempo Communications
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Why it matters: Jolley’s season illustrates how contemporary composers are weaving together performance, pedagogy and preservation work across international stages and institutional settings. Her twin commitments to new opera and public access to archival materials reflect a broader shift in classical music toward both expanded representation and digital openness.
