"Enthralling...Jessica writes with an unpredictable and original voice and a dazzling perceptiveness" JOANNA LUMLEY on SONGS OF TRIUMPHANT LOVE.
Jessica was born in London, where her parents settled after leaving South Africa. She regrets that she can't remember her encounter with JR Tolkein at the age of six, which has become a family legend. She first tried to write a novel at the age of 12. After reading music at Jesus College, Cambridge, she worked as an editor in music magazines for ten years. She writes regularly for The Independent and has interviewed most of the world's finest musicians. Her work appears frequently in BBC Music Magazine, The Strad and Classic FM Magazine, among others, and her music blog "JDCMB", at http://jessicamusic.blogspot.com, has attracted more than 1m readers.
Her novels focus on the cross-currents between family generations; music is a recurring theme, too. RITES OF SPRING (the ballet one - blue) asks what happens when parents are under too much pressure to notice what's happening to their children. ALICIA'S GIFT (the piano one - cranberry) looks at what a family does to talent, and what a talented child does to a family. HUNGARIAN DANCES (the violin one - green) ranges across four generations of an immigrant family of musicians in Britain and SONGS OF TRIUMPHANT LOVE (the singing one - black) explores the effects of love, displacement and war on an opera singer who is losing her voice and her daughter who is finding hers. The celebrated violin and piano duo Philippe Graffin and Claire Désert recorded a CD to complement HUNGARIAN DANCES', available on Onyx Classics.
Jessica's biographies of the composers Gabriel Fauré and Erich Wolfgang Korngold for Phaidon's 20th Century Composers series have met with wide acclaim. Watch an extract from BBC TV's SACRED MUSIC series in which Jessica talks about Fauré's Requiem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK42rSYuRHM
She has published several short stories and her stage works have been presented in the UK, France, Australia and the USA. She also contributed the text for 'Inside London', Dorothy Bohm's photographic portrait of the city.
Jessica lives in London with her husband and cat.
