Geoffrey Pope (b. 1986) has been recognized through numerous commissions and appointments as a composer and conductor. Pope received his undergraduate degree in composition at the University of Southern California, where he studied with Donald Crockett and Tamar Diesendruck. Following this, he received a Master of Arts degree in composition at the Eastman School of Music, where he was a student of composer Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon. He is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree with conductors Brad Lubman and Neil Varon, also at Eastman. A proponent of contemporary music, Pope seeks to present provocative and engaging programs that have a strong cultural impact.

As a conductor, Pope has appeared with a number of ensembles throughout the United States. He currently serves as Assistant Conductor of Musica Nova, Eastman’s renowned contemporary music group, and has prepared ensembles for eminent conductors Brad Lubman, Jeffrey Milarsky, and Alan Pierson, in addition to working with Eastman resident composers Oliver Knussen, Steven Stucky and Tristan Murail. He is Music Director of the Sound ExChange Orchestra, an ensemble devoted to presenting concerts of standard and new repertoire in unorthodox settings to encourage audience interaction with performers and inspire a new generation of listeners. Pope has appeared with the OSSIA New Music ensemble, the Eastman School Symphony Orchestra, and has functioned as Music Director for the Eastman Graduate Composers’ Sinfonietta. In 2010, he recorded Benjamin Boretz’ Violin Concerto with Tchaikovsky Medalist Charles Castleman, for the Open Space label. While at USC, Pope founded the Starving Composers’ Ensemble, whose performances were broadcast on Classical KUSC 91.5. He also conducted the premiere of his chamber opera, The Stone House, with the Chamber Opera of USC, and served as Assistant Conductor for the USC Thornton Contemporary Music Ensemble in 2007 and 2008. The following year, he conducted a new production of Dido and Aeneas in Wichita, Kansas, directed by Kazakh performance artist Timur Bekbosunov. Upcoming engagements include a concert with the Aurora Symphony Orchestra, in Denver, Colorado, where he is a finalist in its music director search.

As a composer, Pope has enjoyed performances by various ensembles and individuals worldwide. In 2007, the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra performed his work in Prague, Budapest and Leipzig. His solo viola piece, Disembarking, was commissioned by playwright E. M. Lewis for her Song of Extinction, and was hailed as “the most amazing element of all” by the Santa Monica Daily Press. It received subsequent performances in Cape Town, South Africa, by violist Renata van der Vyver, and is available on CD. In 2008, his commemorative work, Srebrenica Fields, was performed at the Summer Brass Institute in Atherton, California, and in 2010, his music was performed by flutist Catherine Branch at the Kennedy Center's VSA Festival. While at the Eastman School, Pope has had numerous solo and chamber orchestra premieres. His ongoing project is an opera based on a true story of events in the Bosnian War—Sarajevo Vespers, with a libretto by forensic archaeologist and novelist Courtney Angela Brkić, is due to be completed in 2014 and currently seeks commissioning partners.

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