Jacqueline Black started playing the cello at the age of four and later branched out to include piano. She continued her professional studies to earn degrees in music from the University of Illinois, University of Notre Dame, and Northwestern University and participate in countless masterclasses.

As an orchestral musician, she was a member of the Chicago Youth Orchestra, the Erie Philharmonic, the Erie Chamber Orchestra, the South Bend Symphony, and performed with the Akron Symphony and Wheeling Symphony. She was a featured soloist with the Erie Philharmonic and the Erie Chamber Orchestra, showcasing the concertos of Haydn, Dvorak, Vivaldi, and Shostakovich. An active educator, Jacqueline maintained a private cello studio for many years and held adjunct faculty positions at Mercyhurst University, Allegheny College, and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.

The Savane Trio, a piano trio she founded while at Northwestern, was selected for Chamber Music America’s Rural Residency Program in 1998. The trio served in residence to enhance the musical life of Safford, Arizona, through performances, outreach, and education. They were invited to return to perform Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Eastern Arizona College Orchestra. Prior to the residency, the Savane Trio toured Japan twice receiving critical acclaim in Japan’s Ongakugendai and Ongaku no tomo music magazines. The trio “wept of grief and sang for passion…they are truly extraordinary,” wrote Yoshiko Honobe. The trio has performed throughout the United States and most recently abroad in St. Andrews, Dudee, and Edinburgh, Scotland.

Around a decade ago Jacqueline grew bored with the boundaries of sight reading and the classical repertoire and turned to jazz, attending the Jamey Aebersold Camps to study improvisation. Her journey into a new world really began, however, when, while busking on Mallory Square in her pirate costume, she met the unofficial mayor of Key West, Florida who marched her into a perfomance by guitar great Larry Baeder and the late, great Bill Blue and insisted that they let her sit in. Jacqueline became Larry’s student for several years, culminating in performances at The Little Room in Key West and a headline performance at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, Ohio. Prior to relocating to Florida she could often be found performing in the Cleveland area with blues man Mike Lenz and was a regular guest of entertainer Mike “Mad Dog” Adams at the Roundhouse in Put-in-Bay for several seasons.