Scott Allen Jarrett
Conductor and keyboard player Scott Allen Jarrett is recognized as one of our nation’s leading teachers and interpreters of choral music, and especially, the vocal works of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is the Director of Music, the Arts, and Cultural Engagement at Boston University’s Marsh Chapel and the Resident Conductor, Chorus of the Handel + Haydn Society. From 2004 to 2022, Jarrett was the Artistic Director of Boston’s Back Bay Chorale, leading the Chorale through a remarkable period of artistic and organizational growth.
Appointed by Handel + Haydn Society Conductor Laureate Harry Christophers in 2015, and now under Artistic Director Jonathan Cohen, Jarrett continues his work with one of the finest professional choruses in America, working regularly with Masaaki Suzuki, Raphaël Pichon, Bernard Labadie, Vaclav Luks, Harry Bicket, Jonathan Cohen, and Harry Christophers. Jarrett created and led H+H’s annual Emancipation Proclamation Concert on New Year’s Eve for eight years, commemorating Boston’s historic central role in the abolition movement and the original 1863 Grand Jubilee concert in which H+H musicians performed.
Jarrett’s long and fruitful collaboration with the Oregon Bach Festival began in 2010. A member of the OBF artistic staff, he has served variously as assistant chorus master with Kathy Saltzman Romey, director the Conductors Master Class in Helmuth Rilling’s final year as artistic director, and as director of the Vocal Fellows program in 2016 and 2017. He conducted OBF’s opening performances of the St. Matthew Passion in 2017, and was subsequently invited to lead the Festival’s beloved Discovery Series in 2018 and 2019, teaching and conducting Bach cantatas in public lecture/demonstrations.
Valued for his experience with large choruses and his skills with orchestral repertoire, Jarrett served 11 years as Assistant Conductor and Director of Choruses with the Charlotte Symphony, leading annual Messiah performances, Christmas Pops, as well as regular features on the Orchestra’s main subscription series. Prayers of Kierkegaard by Samuel Barber, Handel’s Saul, the B Minor Mass and St Matthew Passion number among his most memorable concerts in Charlotte. As Acting Director of Choral Activities at the Boston University School of Music, Jarrett conducted Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem at Symphony Hall with the BU Symphonic Chorus and Orchestra. He has been a guest conductor and chorus master for the St Louis Symphony and the New York Philharmonic. In addition to summer festivals across the country, Jarrett has held teaching appointments at Virginia’s Shenandoah Conservatory as Visiting Professor of Choral Studies and Associate Professor of Music at the Boston Conservatory at the Berklee College of Music.
Jarrett is a regular collaborator at Trinity Wall Street (NYC), guest conducting in their Bach cantata series and the concert surveys of Britten and Stravinsky choral music, serving as recording producer and consultant. Jarrett joined then Music Director Julian Wachner in conducting Ives's Fourth Symphony at Carnegie Hall. He sang the role of Jesus in Ginastera’s Turbae et Passionem Gregorianam at the same performance, marking his solo debut at Carnegie Hall. Also at Carnegie Hall, the Marsh Chapel Choir recently joined with Boston’s Chorus Pro Musica for Beethoven 9 with Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic. Later that season, Jarrett prepared an H+H ensemble to sing the Matthew Passion with the Orchestra of St. Lukes and Bernard Labadie at Carnegie.
For four consecutive Decembers, the New York Philharmonic brought the H+H Chorus to Lincoln Center for their annual Messiah performances, with Jarrett serving as Chorus Master. The Marsh Chapel Choir has recorded with Gil Rose and Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and was invited to perform with the Rolling Stones in their 2013 performances at the Boston Garden. Mick Jagger declared the Chapel Choir’s rendition of You can’t always get what you want, “Authoritative!”