Biography
Jessica Ringston is a flutist based in New York City, representing Miyazawa Flutes as an Emerging Artist. A versatile soloist and chamber musician, she has been a featured performer in some of New York’s finest venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, National Sawdust, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bohemian National Hall and National Arts Club. Last spring, Ringston performed as a soloist in Frank Martin’s Ballade for Flute and Orchestra as the winner of the 2023 Purchase College Concerto Competition. She holds a Bachelor of Music from Purchase Conservatory of Music, where she graduated summa cum laude as a student of Dr. Tara Helen O’Connor. Ringston is currently pursuing a Master’s degree at the Mannes School of Music in the studio of Judith Mendenhall. This April, Ringston performed as soloist in Boulez’s Memoriale for flute and orchestra under maestro David Fulmer.
Ringston has performed in masterclasses for Julien Beaudiment, Demarre McGill, Susan Deaver, Bart Feller, Michael Kofler, Brandon Patrick George, and others. Additionally, she participated in the Fellowship Program at the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival. Ringston has earned merit awards from the Long Island Music Hall of Fame, the Long Island Arts Alliance, and is a three-time winner of the Molnar-Harris Chamber Music Competition. She was named an Undergraduate Scholar and earned a grant from the prestigious Presser Foundation.
As a chamber musician, Ringston has been a featured performer in the Necessary Noise Festival, Mannes Sounds, Young Musicians of Westchester, Make Music Day’s 40th Anniversary, The Village Trip’s GuitarFest, and the RiverArts Music Festival. Ringston is a co-founder of the Ringston-Ward Duo, a flute and guitar duo performing a wide variety of classical and contemporary repertoire in the New York City area. The duo has been sought out for their versatility and unique programming, and has curated several concert series at the Hastings-on-Hudson Public Library. They have also given more than a dozen concerts at a nursing home in Greenwich, Connecticut for the facility’s memory impaired residents.
An advocate for new music, Ringston has had the privilege of performing in and recording world premieres for solo flute, flute ensemble, wind quintet, and orchestra. She performed in the world premiere of Cyan Lyricism by Tyson Gholston-Davis featuring Brazilian flutist Tadeu Coelho, the New York premiere of Hide and Seek by Allison-Loggins Hull at the New York Flute Club’s Massed Flutes Concert, as well as NYSoundCircuit’s “Renewal” concert. Her work can be heard in compositions by Ken Turley on all streaming platforms, including Winter and Laurie’s Suite, which she recorded and performed in.
As an educator, Ringston is on the faculty at Nassau-Suffolk Academy of Music and tutors in music theory at Mannes Prep. Additionally, she serves on the Social Media Committee and as student representative of the New York Flute Club. Recently, she presented her research at the American Musicological Society/Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology joint conference at New York University.
