Jessie Miller is a first-year M.A. student in the Musicology department at the Eastman School of Music. She graduated magna cum laude with a B.M. in Violin Performance from Butler University, and her undergraduate thesis was written on the intersection of the work concept and oral transmission in opera. She is pursuing research in music philosophy and music composed after 1950, particularly in areas concerning improvisation, opera, political and economic theory, and ontology. Before coming to Eastman, Jessie pursued a performance career as a violinist and vocalist in Atlanta, GA, singing and playing with the Cathedral Choir and Schola at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Philip and the Atlanta Contemporary Music Collective. In Rochester, she sings with the Eastman Schola Cantorum and has performed with OSSIA New Music. Outside of school, she enjoys hiking and going to jazz clubs, but devotes the majority of her spare time to cultivating the art of chit-chatting.