Chicago, Illinois
Ella Grace is an award-winning performer, composer, and educator based in Chicago. Born in Georgia and raised in Minnesota, Ella has been heralded as “ultra-talented” by the Twin Cities Jazz Festival and labeled a "rising star" in the Twin Cities jazz scene. Ella moved to Chicago in 2021, where she earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Studies summa cum laude from DePaul University in 2025. In 2024, Ella won the Chicago Music Scene Fellowship, which funded her debut album as a leader, releasing March 2026 on Shifting Paradigm Records. Ella performs frequently in the Chicago area, Midwest, and beyond both as a side-woman and bandleader with her original compositions a variety of jazz and jazz-adjacent styles. In 2024, Ella became the first female trumpeter to tour with the world-famous Glenn Miller Orchestra, expanding her reach from national to international. Ella is also a passionate jazz educator and won the 2024 Jazz Education Network Jamey Aebersold Endowed Scholarship, a special distinction for young educators. Ella has a robust private studio and teaches masterclasses and summer camps across the country to help foster the next generation of jazz musicians. Most recently, Ella taught at the University of North Texas Summer Jazz Workshop.
Aside from performing and composing, Ella is deeply passionate about furthering gender equity in jazz and recently completed a thesis project on the subject, which won the first place Sloane Prize in Undergraduate Research at the 2024 National Collegiate Honors Conference. She has presented her research on gender equity in jazz at the Chicago Women’s History Conference, Chicago Undergraduate Research Symposium, and DePaul Honors Research Conference, and will be presenting her work at the 2026 Jazz Education Network Conference.
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Psyche of a Jazzwoman: Gendered Psychological Barriers to Jazz Participation
Thursday, January 8, 2026
3:30 PM - 5:30 PM CST
