Jacqueline Pickett

She also has album credits with hip hop/rhythm and blues artists Monica and Jhelisa and alternative classical “music without boundaries” with the Nashville Chamber Orchestra.

As a student of acclaimed bassist and activist Richard Davis, Jacqueline has a deep passion concerning music for social change. To this end, she worked with pianist Consuela Lee in Snow Hill, Alabama, teaching young people how to play improvised music. Their duo, the Lee/Pickett duo, brought down many great artists, including Max Roach and Milt Jackson, to audiences in rural Alabama to inspire young people. From 2011-2018, she headed the 501c3 non-profit TORCH (Together, Orchestras Revitalize Community Harmony) Academy that was dedicated to music education through community involvement. She is the bandleader of Metro Atlanta Women’s Jazz Society (MA JAZZ), an organization that promotes female jazz artists.

Pickett is Principal Bass of the Columbus (GA) Symphony Orchestra, LaGrange Symphony Orchestra, Gwinnett Ballet Theatre Orchestra and Colour of Music Festival Virtuosi and Symphony Orchestras. She received her Bachelor of Music degree with high honors from West Virginia University; was awarded the George Wellington Miles merit-based scholarship for her master’s degree from the Yale School of Music; and was the first person to receive the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Double Bass Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her dissertation on the music of American Composer John Elwood Price (1935-1996) remains the most comprehensive work on the celebrated composer and beloved faculty member at Tuskegee University.

Pickett is a founding member of the Sphinx Orchestra, the Ritz Chamber Players, and former Principal Bass of the Gateways Music Festival where she has been invited to join the orchestra for their Carnegie Hall debut in April 2022. She is on the music faculty of Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia and is a visiting artist at the Pontifical Javeriana University in Bogota, Colombia.