Dr. Jessie Fillerup

Dr. Jessie Fillerup is an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Richmond in the U.S. She researches music and sound design in magic shows from the nineteenth century to the modern era, which she explores in her upcoming book, Enchanted: Music, Stage Magic, and Illusory Technologies. In her first book, Magician of Sound: Ravel and the Aesthetics of Illusion (University of California Press), she examined illusory effects in the orchestral and vocal music of the French composer, Maurice Ravel. Her most recent publications have focused on the performance, function, and reception of music in nineteenth-century magic shows, and on the musical supernaturalism of Robert Heller, the conjurer and virtuoso pianist.