Jessica Wells was born in Florida, USA in 1974 and migrated to Australia at the age of 11. She completed her Bachelor of Music degree in Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 1996 and graduated with first class honours. This was followed by a Masters Degree in Composition under Dr. Bozidar Kos completed in 1998. After teaching composition at the Conservatorium for four years, she spent time living in Antwerp, Belgium and then returned to Sydney in 2003. She has just completed a Masters in Screen Composition at the AFTRS (Australian Film, Television and Radio School) in 2005, and was awarded the Film Critic's Circle Award for "Best Display of Technical Excellence" for her work on eight short films.

Jessica's compositions cross many genres in the classical, commercial and film music worlds. She has worked for some of Australia's best composers as an orchestrator, arranger and copyist.

Her orchestral music has been performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Sinfonia, Queensland Orchestra and Sydney Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra. Her work Ainulindale was commissioned by Symphony Australia for the TSO in 2001 and was nominated in the APRA Classical Music Awards for "Best Orchestral Work" in 2002. Many of her works have been recorded and broadcast by the ABC, including The Eight Immortals which was the only Australian finalist in the prestigious Alexander Zemlinsky International Prize for orchestral composition in the USA.

Commissions from Marshall McGuire (harp), The Sydney Conservatorium Cello Ensemble (Dir. Georg Pedersen), and KARAK Percussion Duo were supported by the Australia Council through their "New Work" grants scheme.

KARAK Percussion perform Jessica's collection of marimba duos regularly around Australia, and in April 2005 premiered a new work written for them entitled "Three Blind Moose" which was well-received by the Sydney Audience at one of KARAK's dynamic concerts. They also performed "Kookaburra Sits in the Antwerp Zoo" and "Eel in Green" which has had many broadcasts on ABC Classic FM over the past year.

Marshall McGuire will be performing "Muntu Walunga" for solo harp at the upcoming World Harp Conference in Dublin on July 18th.