Jacob Stensberg

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR & CONDUCTOR

Jacob Stensberg is an enthusiastic and energetic conductor and performer whose creative output centers core values including authenticity, connection, and compassion. He is the Artistic Director of the 250-voice San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and the Chan National Queer Arts Center at 170 Valencia in San Francisco

Through initiatives like SFGMC’s Inaugural Composition Competition in 2022, Jake uplifts local art and local artists to strengthen the supportive network in small communities while elevating world-class art to the world at large.

Jake’s passion for art and culture at the local level extends beyond the United States. He has engaged in collaborative programming with culture bearers from the Republic of Georgia, South Africa, Iran, Ukraine, the Philippines, and Corsica. While on staff at Purdue University from 2018-2022, Jake developed and has given conference presentations on Resilient Intercultural Pedagogy, a framework and methodology of teaching, learning, and performing cultural music and the impact it has on intrapersonal skills such as empathy, curiosity, and openness.

Jake’s stylistic shapeshifting comes from his eclectic background. After teaching in Wisconsin public schools for two years, he moved to New York City where he was a church musician, music director of two after school choral and theater programs, on staff at a new music-focused arts nonprofit, and freelance arranger, accompanist, and vocal coach.

At Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, Jake worked with 350 students in 8 ensembles. He prepared and performed the music for the commissioning of the USS Indiana at Port Canaveral, Florida in September 2018. A year later, he composed the anthem which NASA used to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Jake’s integrated and community-based pandemic (2020) programming, “Singing as Civic Engagement,” garnered notable respect and press from the University, lauding its contemporary relevance and situational resilience.

Jake received his formal and formative training from Dr. Kristina Boerger at Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where he earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree. He earned his Master of Music degree in Conducting from Butler University where he studied with Dr. Eric Stark.