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The Australian tenor and conductor, Jasper Schoff, Jasper holds an Associate in Music diploma (AMusA) in violin performance, having begun his studies at the age of 4 with Yasuki Nakamura, but in college (Sydney Grammar School: 2012-2017) his focus has turned more to singing. In Syndey, he was Director of Masterclass Series of Sydney Youth Orchestras (Jul-October 2020). He obtained his Bachelor degree in History/Music from the Harvard University (2018-2022), living at Harvard College in Lowell House. He was awarded Minda de Gunzburg Grant (May-August 2021) to fund research on aesthetic policy and musical tastemaking in 16th century Paris, focusing on early printed documents and vocal part-books. He thinks one of the most frustrating issues with the performance of historical musics is the inevitable gap between past and present modes of hearing, and he loves looking for ways to bring early sound to modern ears in engaging and dynamic ways with his own conducting.
At Harvard, Jasper Schoff was employed as a Ferris Choral Fellow of the Harvard University Choir (Director: Edward Elwyn Jones), where he sang every morning at the Memorial Church in the Yard, and held a tuition scholarship with acclaimed tenor Frank Kelley. In 2019, he sang the role of the Baritone Armed Guard in Harvard College Opera performance of W.A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, and he soloed with the Harvard University Choir in J.S. Bach's Magnificat in D major BWV 243 (May 2021), W.A. Mozart's Vesperae Solemnes de Confessore, and George Frideric Handel's Judas Maccabaeus. He began his conducting studies in 2018 with Maestro Federico Cortese, and he has since been the Music Director of Kiss Me, Kate with the Harvard Radcliffe Gilbert & Sullivan Players (2020), Assistant Music Director of Mateo Lincoln's original composition, the Tempest (2019), Ensemble Director of Lowell House Opera's staging of Sweeney Todd (2020), and Music Director of W.A. Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (January 2022). In 2021-2022, he served as co-Music Director (with Clara Nguyen) of the Mozart Society Orchestra.
After Harvard, Jasper Schoff moved to England, where he studied for his Master of Philosophy degree at the University of Cambridge (October 2022-June 2023), as 2022 Ramsay Postgraduate Scholar under William Barclay Squire Scholarship from Cambridge Faculty of Music; and was Baritone Choral Scholar at Choir of Clare College, Cambridge. He then has been Graduate Music Assistant/Choral Scholar at Whitgift School and Croydon Minster (since August 2023). |
