Jessica Gerhardt

I am a singer and ukulele player and I come prepared to every gig with all requested music on an iPad, and all other equipment needed. My voice ranges from pop to folk to jazzy and my ukulele playing tends towards a folksy strumming style, more like acoustic guitar, less like plucky, plingy ukulele. I am happy to offer just vocals to a gig, depending on what is called for. I play standard ukulele as well as baritone ukulele, which is tuned like the top for strings of a guitar and has more of a lower resonance. I can play either for gigs.

If a band or accompanists are needed for an event I have a long roster of talented, professional musician contacts and can also assemble a band as needed.

Jessica Gerhardt is a singer-songwriter and ukuleleist from Santa Monica, California. She started writing songs when she was 8 years old and became confident in performing and being on stage through her involvement with The Virginia Avenue Project, a program that brings kids together with professional artists to create theater, shepherded at the time by founder and Artistic Director, Leigh Curran. After receiving a ukulele as a birthday gift, she taught herself to play and it became her principle songwriting instrument. Jessica's debut performances of original songs were at an open mic night for high school students called Downbeat 720, organized by the talented Joe Hernandez-Kolski and Joshua Silverstein.

Jessica attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon where she played in a band called Just Orange and continued to write songs. While there, her Catholic Christian faith also began to grow and influence her identity and songwriting, and ultimately led her to feeling called to pursue music. As a graduating senior she was interviewed about her time at Reed and her music in Reed Magazine.

After completing her B.A. degree, Jessica came back home to LA to begin to record the songs she had written and build a music career. In August of 2014 she released her first EP of original music, an EP entitled "Words Like Rainfall" under the name, Feronia, a collaboration with producer Patrick Doyle. After completing the album she assembled a band and performed around Los Angeles. Under the same name, she released a cover of Emmylou Harris's "Little Bird" on a tribute record called "To Emmylou", featuring a number of fellow Los Angeles-based bands and artists, reviewed in Rolling Stone. For a few years Jessica took a step back from regularly playing out with her own music, and recorded and performed with LA electro-pop group, Hotel For Strangers. After her hiatus, Jessica decided to retire her former artist name, and to release music under her own name.

She has since released a 5-song EP "Be My Hands", 10 singles, and is working on a full length record "Alight Beyond The Sea" to be released in 2023.