About Jessica

Jessica Bejarano is the Founder and Music Director of the San Francisco Philharmonic, Curator and Scholar in Residence with San Francisco Opera, Cover Conductor with San Francisco Symphony, board member of the Association of California Symphony Orchestras (ACSO), board member of the International Conductors’ Guild and Keynote Speaker for Stanford Health Care 2024-2025.

Jessica was featured on NBC’s The Today Show with Natalie Morales as the “Woman Breaking Barriers as a Trailblazing Symphony Conductor”. PBS News Hour Weekend also featured Jessica as an emerging female conductor and KQED named Jessica 1 of 10 artists to watch in KQED Arts’ Bay Brilliant Top 10 Artists of 2018. In 2022, Jessica was featured on ABC’s hit show, To Tell the Truth and recently, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) named Jessica 1 of 100 Honorees for 2023 for her contribution to the Arts in the Bay Area, San Francisco.

In 2022 Jessica and the San Francisco Philharmonic had the extreme honor of partnering up with Remezcla and Tecate beer company to put on a unique and ground breaking performance of Urban Latino sounds meets the symphonic orchestral arena for the creation of Tecate Alta performance! That same year, San Francisco Philharmonic and Jessica were invited to perform with American legendary rock band - Journey at the Chase Center Plaza in San Francisco for the Winter Wonderland Spectacular and recently a cross over performance with the San Francisco Philharmonic and legendary rapper, Andre Nickatina.

In 2019 Jessica was the first woman in history to guest conduct the American Youth Symphony in Los Angeles. She was also the featured guest conductor and clinician at the San Diego State University’s Women in Music, Diversity and Leadership Conference. In January 2018, she was one of twelve female conductors selected from around the world to attend and conduct at the International Women’s Conference in New York City. During that same time Jessica was the resident conductor of the University of California Santa Cruz Symphony Orchestra. In 2022, Jessica was the guest conductor of the Kansas All State Orchestra, leading a 200-piece student orchestra through rehearsals and performance.

Jessica has guest conducted the Classical Symphony in St. Petersburg Russia; Urbino Summer Orchestra in Urbino, Italy: Philharmonie Orchestra “Mihail Jora” Bacau, Romania; Ruse National Philharmonic, Ruse, Bulgaria; Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra, Czech Republic; Antonio Soler Orquestra, San Lorenzo de Escorial, Spain; Falcon Symphony Orchestra, Falcon, Venezuela and various orchestras throughout the United States. She has also held many conducting positions with various Bay Area orchestras, choirs and youth orchestras. Jessica is a motivational speaker for numerous arts organizations, companies and schools.

Jessica received her Master of Arts in Choral and Orchestral Conducting from the University of California Davis, Bachelor of Music in Music Education from the University of Wyoming and Associates of Fine Arts in Music Education from Casper College.