Award-winning Australian harpist Jessica Fotinos has earned an international reputation as an extremely versatile and distinctive musician. She is comfortable across a broad range of genres, performing classical, jazz, cabaret, pop and new music at the highest levels.

 

From 2017 - 2023 Jessica was the first appointed principal harpist at international Suzhou Symphony Orchestra, Suzhou China.

As a concerto soloist, Jessica’s performances include Ginastera’s Harp Concerto, Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto, Debussy’s Danses and the Glière Harp Concerto. Jessica has performed alongside an array of world-class musicians, including Andrea Boccelli, Brett Dean, Annne -Sophie Mutter, Pekka-Kuusisto: celebrated cabaret artist Meow Meow; pop artists such as Idina Menzel and Olivia Newton John; Australian rock icon Paul Kelly. Her collaborative album with Kelly Conversations with Ghosts won an Aria Award in 2013.
 

She is considered one of Australia’s leading harpists for exploratory and new music. She has premiered numerous solo harp and chamber works, including David Chisholm’s Double Concerto for Harp and Guitar at the 2015 Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music. She has also embraced many interdisciplinary collaborations, such as dance projects with the Australian Ballet and Malthouse Theatre Company’s adaptation of Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, for single actor - written by Van Badham and David Chisholm starring Hollywood actress Alison Whyte and three harps. This production won a Green Room Award for best musical score in 2014.
 

Jessica has appeared as a principal/tutti harpist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, Western Australian Symphony Orchestra, and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Her time in Europe saw her engaged with several orchestras including the Hamburg Philharmonic, the Schöneberg Symphony Orchestra and the Sibelius Philharmonic Orchestra. She has played under the batons of Simone Young, Roberto Abbado, Daniel Oren, Thomas Adés, Pietari Inkinen, Markus Stenz, Paul Daniel and Sebastien Lang-Lessing.
 

A great lover of chamber music, activities have seen her as a regular guest at the Bangalow Music Festival, the Melbourne International Arts Festival, the Tongyeong Festival, the Perth International Arts Festival and the Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music. As a member of the flute, viola and harp trio Petrichor, Jessica toured Europe and Canada, as well as holding residencies at the Banff Centre, Canada and the Centre Intermondes in La Rochelle, France.
 

Jessica graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, on a full scholarship and became the first harpist to be accepted into the elite Australian National Academy of Music, where she learned from Jacinta Dennett and had supplementary lessons with Alice Giles.  Her studies subsequently took her to England, France, Germany and Canada, where she learnt from Judy Loman, Karen Vaughan, Isabelle Perrin, Isabelle Moretti and Stephen Fitzpatrick. Jessica’s most recent album, Mondrian Interiors, features the music of Australian composer Stuart Greenbaum, and has been released on the ABC Classics label and is available on itunes and Spotify.