Jasper Schoff

Jasper Schoff ('22) is a conductor from Sydney, Australia, currently living at Harvard College in Lowell House. He is extraordinarily proud to be Music Directing this year's production of Le Nozze di Figaro. Jasper is in the final year of a History and Music joint concentration, and is enjoying writing an honours thesis on the construction of the ideal listener in the paratexts of sixteenth century French musical publications. 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.

Jasper holds an Associate in Music diploma (AMusA) in violin performance, having begun his studies at the age of four with Yasuki Nakamura, but in college his focus has turned more to singing. He is employed as a Ferris Choral Fellow of the Harvard University Choir, where he sings every morning at the Memorial Church in the Yard, and holds a tuition scholarship with acclaimed tenor Frank Kelley. In 2019, he sang the role of the Baritone Armed Guard in HCO's performance of Die Zauberflöte, and he has soloed with the University Choir in J.S Bach's Magnificat in D, Mozart's Vesperae Solemnes de Confessore, and Handel's Judas Maccabaeus. Jasper 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), and Ensemble Director of Lowell House Opera's staging of Sweeney Todd (2020). He currently serves as co-MD of the Mozart Society Orchestra.