She was four years old, sitting beside her mother in a church pew, when she saw it for the first time, a violinist, bow in hand, filling the sanctuary with sound. Jamie Perry didn’t know what the instrument was called. She only knew she wanted to do that.
More than two decades later, that little girl from Houston, Texas, is now the violinist at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, a recording artist, a music educator, and a multi-genre performer who has taken her bow to stages across the world.
Perry’s path was paved right here in Houston. At five years old, she enrolled in the violin program at Parker Elementary School, a magnet school whose music curriculum gave her both in-school lessons and access to private instruction. Her first teacher, Shirley Cook, laid the foundation for her early education. Kathy Karpicki carried her from third grade through tenth, sharpening her technique through private lessons and orchestra training.
From there, the pipeline that Houston’s arts community built for students like her guided Perry to Johnston Middle School, now Meyerland Middle, where Dr. Catherine Brown taught her how to carry herself in an orchestra.
“She made sure that we knew how to play in an orchestra, how to sit, what to wear, how to be in a group,” Perry says.
Dr. José Rocha then trained her as concertmaster in eighth grade. Then came HSPVA (Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts), where Dr. Hector Aguero further cemented her craft.
In 2014, at just 18, she went to London to pursue her bachelor’s degree in violin performance at The Royal Academy of Music, the oldest conservatoire in the United Kingdom. She was one of three Americans in her graduating class of 88 students. The only Black American.
“I really felt like I met God again in London because I was by myself… Being around people who are really excellent at that level, it kind of humbles you, but at the same time, it gives you this fuel.”
Jamie Perry
“I really felt like I met God again in London because I was by myself,” Perry says. “Being around people who are really excellent at that level, it kind of humbles you, but at the same time, it gives you this fuel.”
The Royal Academy pushed her hard, but it was her teacher there, Joshua Fisher, who helped her find herself.
“He really taught me how to be Jamie,” she says. “He made it clear that no matter what I did, as long as it was technically sound, as long as it was excellent, it was beneficial to me.”
She walked the same hallways as Jacob Collier, now one of the most celebrated musicians in the world.
“We were in the same graduating class,” Perry says. “We saw each other in the canteen. Being around people like that, you’re like, ‘wait, I can actually hang with the big dogs and still be myself.’”
Coming home
Perry began thinking about her next move before graduation. She turned to someone who had always believed in her, Minister Leon Lewis, the minister of music at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church.
He had watched her play since she was a child, had invited her to perform during summertime and holiday services when she came home from school, and had always seen the potential in bringing strings into the church’s ministry.
“I sent him a long email. I thanked him for his support and, at the end, asked if there might be a place for her on his team,” Perry says. “ He said, ‘Absolutely. We would love to have you. This has been part of my vision for years.’”
That was eight years ago. Today, Perry is the lone violinist in the Wheeler band, the only woman among a group she describes as “some of the top musicians in the world.” She is also the assistant orchestra director at Booker T. Washington High School, pouring into the next generation of Houston’s musicians.
Sisterhood in creativity
Q Olivia Rivers, the dance director at Wheeler and Perry’s closest friend, has had a front-row seat to all of it. The two connected at church years ago, Rivers, 10 years Perry’s senior, drawn in by the sound of strings she’d always loved.
“The way Jamie plays music in a church setting, there’s a spectrum,” Rivers says. “There are moments of quiet reverence where a hymn sounds so soft and sweet and melodic. And then there are times where we are rocking out, it’s almost like a rock band.”
When Perry released her single “Church” on her birthday, February 1st, Rivers choreographed a dance piece for it, collaborating with her friend to visually bring the music to life.
“Did you ever think our ancestors would be praying in the cotton fields about this little Black girl who was going to grow up and play the violin?” Rivers said. “There are spaces our ancestors fought for us to be in, stages we would never have been able to dance on.”
Perry’s debut EP, Driving Music, released in 2020, was born from a sound she heard in her Mini Cooper vehicle every time she started the car, the seatbelt chime. She and a friend recorded it, slammed the door, revved the engine, and built a beat from the sounds. Five tracks later, she had her first project. Her new single “Church” marks her first foray into gospel music, and she hints that a larger project is in the works.
“I can’t give too much away,” she says, “but it’s gonna be lit.”
Perry grew up in classrooms where the number of Black students in orchestra dwindled each year. Her advice to the young girls coming up behind her is as grounded as the faith that drives everything she does: “Give yourself grace. Slow practice is your best friend. Have fun with it. And place positive affirmations onto what you’re doing, because it is a difficult instrument, but if you invest the time now, it won’t be as hard in the future.”
“In kindergarten, everyone’s doing it. By first grade, there are a few. By fifth grade, it might just be you and one other kid,” Perry says. “Now, seeing all types of Black violinists, doing rock, EDM, gospel, and seeing us take the violin and make it fit into our culture, I think, is really, really cool.”
