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“When people find their voice, they find their confidence. When that happens collectively, something extraordinary happens.”

Jennifer John, a tall woman with dark brown skin & very short hair, seated on a blue velvet couch wearing a dark pink patterned shirt and back pants. She is looking down smiling shyly. The background is dark blue contemporary flock wallpaper

Image: John Johnson

Artist | Vocal Composer | Creative Director

Jennifer John is an artist, vocal composer and creative director creating original work that brings people together through the power of collective voices. Her practice explores humanity, connection and belonging through composition, participatory performance and ambitious vocal experiences, inviting audiences not simply to listen, but to inhabit music together.

Working across original theatre, live performance and interdisciplinary collaboration, Jennifer creates work that dissolves the boundaries between performer and audience. Whether composing for the stage, directing large-scale vocal projects or developing new participatory experiences, her work celebrates the human voice as a catalyst for confidence, curiosity, inclusion and social change.

Drawing on polyphony, improvisation, embodiment and audience participation, Jennifer's artistic practice asks how collective singing can deepen human connection and create shared experiences that are emotionally resonant, socially engaged and artistically ambitious.

Jennifer’s ever-expanding portfolio includes Sense of Sound, Enormous Vocal Ensemble (EVE) and Folk to Folk. Each reflects a different strand of her artistic practice, while sharing a commitment to advancing the possibilities of collective voices, championing equality, inclusion and belonging, and creating experiences that unite people across cultures, communities and lived experiences.

Current Artistic Direction (DYCP)

Jennifer is currently undertaking a year of artistic development supported by Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice programme.

This period is enabling her to further define her artistic practice, with an increasing focus on collective voices, participation, cultural storytelling, and authored interdisciplinary performance frameworks.

Awards

  • National Honour from Her Majesty The Queen for services to community singing (2003)

  • Arts and Culture Award — European Federation of Black Women Business Owners (2005)

  • Liverpool City Region Community Art and Music Award — winner (2018)

  • LCR Culture and Creativity Awards — Impact Award for COVID-19 Individual Creative Response (2020)

  • AIM Independent Music Awards — Local Hero Award (BBC Music Introducing) (2021)

Creative Leadership and Governance

  • 20 Stories High — vice chair

  • Black Music Action Group — former chair

  • Liverpool Philharmonic Hall — former trustee

  • Liverpool City Region Music Board — former trustee

In Conversation

Listen to Jennifer John in conversation with Liverpool Music City, part of Liverpool’s UNESCO City of Music programme, reflecting on her creative practice and the wider music industry.