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About Steven Zopfi, TBF artistic director
Steven Zopfi founded the Tacoma Bach Festival in 2022 to explore the legacy and influence of J.S. Bach and to bring high-level professional baroque music to the Tacoma area. No stranger to early music, Zopfi was the founding conductor of Boulder Camerata and the Foundling Hospital Singers and has been featured at the Colorado Early Music Society. He has regularly conducted Bach's music at the professional and collegiate levels and has collaborated with Baroque music specialists, Bernard Labadie, Jean Marie Zeitouni, and Dominique Labelle. Equally at home with symphonic
repertoire, he served as Artistic Director of the Portland Symphonic Choir from 2003 to 2018, the official chorus of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra. Zopfi led the Oregon Symphony and PSC in performances of Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, and music by Beethoven, Bach, and Wagner. Critics have hailed his work as “magical” and “superb.”
Zopfi currently serves as Director of Choral Activities and Professor of Music at the University of Puget Sound where he oversees four choirs, teaches conducting, applied voice, and conducts the award-winning Adelphian Concert Choir. Prior to his appointment at Puget Sound, he served on the faculties of Penn State University, the University of Washington and Pacific Lutheran University. Choirs under his direction have been invited to sing at the local and regional conventions of the American Choral Director’s Association, the National Association for Music Education, the Society of Composers, Inc., the Colorado Early Music Society, and other professional organizations.
A native of New Jersey, Zopfi has a Bachelor degree in music education from the Hartt School of Music, a Master of Music degree in conducting from the University of California, Irvine, and Doctor of Musical Arts in choral conducting from the University of Colorado. He taught in the public schools in Vermont and New York, where he also served as Vermont State President of the American Choral Directors Association and an executive board member of the Vermont Music Educators Association. Since coming to the Pacific Northwest in 2001 he continued to remain active in professional organizations serving as Chair of Collegiate Activities for WA ACDA and NW ACDA. He is in constant demand as a conductor, adjudicator, and clinician. In 2015 he was named the Outstanding Choral Conductor of the year by WA ACDA.