Soprano Jessica Rivera graduated from Pepperdine University in 1996 and pursued graduate studies at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music, receiving her master's degree in 1998. She has become a specialist in contemporary opera and vocal music, singing in performances of major works by John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, Jonathan Leshnoff, Deborah Drattell, Nico Muhly, John Rutter, John Harbison, Christopher Theofanidis, Roberto Sierra, and Gabriela Lena Frank. Rivera has performed with the Los Angeles Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Netherlands Opera, and she sang at the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna. She has collaborated with Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano, Bernard Haitink, Markus Stenz, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Alan Gilbert, and Michael Tilson Thomas, among many other conductors. She has recorded with CSO Resound, Deutsche Grammophon, Urtext, ASO Media, and other labels.