Jess Wade, Director

Jess Wade is the director of the Texas A&M University Century Singers and a native of Missouri. He holds degrees from Southwest Baptist University, Kansas State University, and the University of Missouri-Columbia. In addition to his teaching at the college level, he taught four years at a large suburban high school in Kansas City. Wade is the Assistant Coordinator of Music at Texas A&M University where he conducts the Century Singers and the Women’s Chorus, and is the Artistic Director/Conductor of the Brazos Valley Chorale.

Wade has also worked with and prepared choirs for Sir David Willcocks, Roger Wagner, and John Rutter. Besides his skills as a conductor, he has served as a choral and vocal accompanist on both collegiate and professional levels, notably with Robert Shaw in presentations of Bach's Mass in B minor and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

There have been a number of collaborative efforts between Wade and the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra. His conducting debut with the BVSO was a performance of Handel's complete Messiah. He also conducted the Chorale, Century Singers and orchestra in performances of Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem, Vaughan William's Sea Symphony and Debussy's Sirenes. Other major choral works he has prepared for performance in the Brazos Valley have included Requiems of Mozart, Durufle, and Lloyd Webber; Bach's Mass in B minor; Bernstein's Chichester Psalms; Poulenc's Gloria; Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem; Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610; Honegger's King David; and Holst's The Planets.