Guest Artist Bio
Steven Zopfi
Hailed as one of the leading young conductors in the Pacific Northwest, Steven Zopfi serves as Director of Choral Activities at the University of Puget Sound and is the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Portland Symphonic Choir. Critics have hailed his work as "magical" and "superb." Zopfi has served on the faculties of Penn State University, the University of Washington and Pacific Lutheran University.
Zopfi, a native of New Jersey, attended the Hartt School of Music and the University of California at Irvine, and earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Colorado. He taught in the public schools in Vermont and New York and he has served as Vermont State President of the American Choral Directors Association and on the executive boards of the Vermont Music Educators Association and the Washington Choral Director's Association. He has prepared choruses for Carlos Kalmar, Bernard Labadie, Alastair Willis, Murray Sidlin and Peter Schickele, and as a singer he has sung for many leading conductors, including Robert Shaw and Sir David Wilcocks. Zopfi has performed with the Prague Philharmonic, The Colorado Symphony, and the New Jersey Symphony, and is the founder and past artistic director of The Foundling Hospital Singers, the Boulder Schola Cantorum, the Grace Chamber Orchestra and the Portland Sinfonietta.
Zopfi's scholarly interests include late 20th-century American motet composition and the instrumentation of the basso continuo of early 17th-century vocal music. Active as an editor of early music, Zopfi is also a passionate advocate for new music, and he has commissioned and conducted the world premieres of music by Edwin Lawrence, Timothy Melbinger, Bryan Johanson and Judith Zaimont. His music reviews and articles have been published in The Choral Journal and his arrangements and editions are published by Colla Voce publishing. Zopfi is in constant demand as a conductor, adjudicator and clinician, and he resides in Puyallup, WA, with his wife and step-daughter.