JEANNINE WAGNER is the newest talent to emerge from a family of gifted artists:  her grandfather was a distinguished organist; her mother is a noted painter; and her father was the legendary choral conductor Roger Wagner.  At her father’s direction, she received musical training in piano, voice, viola, and conducting.  She studied with such luminaries as Lotte Lehmann, Helmuth Rilling, Daniel Lewis, Herbert Blomstedt and Erich Leinsdorf.  For ten years, she served as assistant director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, in which position she had the pleasure of preparing masterworks for prominent conductors Eugene Ormandy, Carlo Maria Giulini, Zubin Mehta, Michael Tilson Thomas and Simon Rattle.

Before assuming leadership in 1992, Ms. Wagner traveled as chorister and soloist with the Roger Wagner Chorale on tours throughout the United States, Europe, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and Japan.  In October of 2000, she will have successfully completed her fifth tour of Japan as conductor.  Her first recording with the Chorale on compact disc, Quilting an American Christmas, was recently featured on “The First Art” nationally  syndicated radio program.

Grounded in early music, Ms. Wagner has also applied her talent to new and unusual repertoire, including premieres of Steve Reich and Krzysztof Penderecki.  Among her myriad credits as singer and consultant in the motion picture industry is her work with Steven Spielberg and John Williams in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Empire of the Sun, Hook, and Jurassic Park .

Ms Wagner was engaged in 1997 as chorusmaster and assistant conductor by Sakai City Opera for its production of Carmen, and in 1999 returned to Osaka, Japan as guest conductor for the annual concert of the Matsushita Chuo Choir.

In addition to being the founder and director of the Roger Wagner Chorale, Ms. Wagner serves as director of the St. Francis de Sales Parish Choir, and the Wagner Ensemble. 

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