Jesse Plessis is currently working towards a master of music degree in piano performance with Megumi Masaki at Brandon University. In his bachelor of music degree he studied piano performance with Deanna Oye and composition with Arlan Schultz at the University of Lethbridge. He has performed in solo piano masterclasses with Eve Egoyan, Bruce Vogt, James Nalley, Jacques Després, and in collaborative masterclasses with James Ehnes, Lucille Chung and Alessio Bax, and the Bergmann Piano Duo.

Plessis has been awarded prizes both in piano and composition, most recently by the Associated Manitoba Arts Festivals, the Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg, and the Canadian Music Centre Prairie Region Emerging Composers Competition for his orchestral work Tender is the Night. He has performed with the Musaeus String Quartet, the Land’s End Chamber Ensemble, the International Piano Ensemble, the Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra, and the Symphonie of the Kootenays, and has made several appearances on CBC Radio.

A sometime conductor, Plessis has directed performances with the Brandon University New Music Ensemble (BUNME), the Brandon University Orchestra, and several musical theatre productions.

He is an advocate of the music of our time, and has given several world and North American premieres. His participation with BUNME and its artistic director Megumi Masaki has led to coaching and classes with composers Kaija Saariaho, John Corigliano, Nico Muhly, and Kjartan Olafsson. Jesse’s interest in contemporary has music led him to co-create the Hansen-Plessis Piano Duo, whose performance of Jesse’s piano-duo arrangement of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the seminal psychedelic rock album by The Beatles, received an acclaimed premiere in August 2011.