A career connecting music, culture, and community.

While on staff at Purdue University from 2018–2022, Jake developed and gave 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 a freelance arranger, accompanist, and vocal coach.

At Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, Jake worked with 350 students in eight 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 NASA used to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.

Jake's integrated and community-based pandemic programming, “Singing as Civic Engagement,” garnered notable respect and press from the university, recognizing its contemporary relevance and 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.