"Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will. But I will sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song." - Eru Iluvatar, The Silmarillion, JRR Tolkien
Bass-Baritone and Composer
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Next Performance:
The 144th Messiah Festival
Messiah Festival of the Arts
Lindsborg, KS
April 10-13, 2025
Contact:
Email: ian@ianschipperbass.com
Ian Schipper is a bass-baritone who enjoys exploring the full range of human musical experience by performing a wide variety of art songs, oratorios, and operas. He has featured up and down the West Coast as the Bass soloist for numerous Bach and Handel Oratorios as well as the Masses of Haydn and Mozart. He sings Bass with a number of choral groups, both on the West Coast and across the United States, including the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus, Seraphic Fire, Sterling Ensemble, Keiju Kollektiv, Long Beach Camerata singers, Catalyst Chamber Choir, San Diego Symphony Festival Chorus, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. He also enjoys performing new compositions, as a cofounder of St Olaf College’s Spiritus Novus, which provides a space for student composers to have their works performed and experiment within the choral style.
Ian earned a Masters Degree in Vocal Performance from the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and a Bachelor degree in Music and Economics cum Laude at St. Olaf College, He has studied voice with Michael Dean of UCLA, Emery Stephens, Robert C. Smith and Wilfred Williams of St. Olaf College, and Michael Meraw of the New England Conservatory. He is also an award-winning composer with Music Teachers National Association and has done research in the fields of Economics and Medical Informatics. In his free time, Ian works with arts organizations to clean their data and optimize their information ecosystems. He has also worked with Long Beach Opera on a number of data-driven initiatives to make Opera more accessible to the public. Ian hails from Portland, Oregon, and enjoys hiking and backpacking around the Pacific Northwest. He is also a lifelong Tolkien fan, having read The Hobbit at least 30 times, and he can frequently be found carrying a “pocket version” of the Lord of the Rings.