Jennifer has been with the SMU Chamber Choir since their formation, directing them in big and small performances, at home and on tour in Poland, Russia, Indonesia and the Czech Republic.
A professional choir director, Jennifer is best known for her work with the Singapore Youth Choir (now the SYC Ensemble Singers), which she has directed since 1986. Her training as a composer has led her to explore and re-define the choral idiom through her work with the SYC and her school choirs. As a guest conductor, she has worked in France and Japan and will be working with the New Liszt Chamber Choir in Budapest later this year.
Jennifer is Artistic Director of the Young Musicians’ Society, the arts company responsible for the Asia South Pacific Symposium on Choral Music (2001) and its offshoots, the First Aid for Choirs and Conductors Workshop Series, and the Kodaly Seminar Asia for music pedagogues; the latter in collaboration with the Kodaly Institute of the Liszt Academy of Music (Budapest, Hungary).
Jennifer has taught choral conducting at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, and given workshops and short courses to conductors at home, in Australia, Japan and Indonesia. She has chaired and spoken on panels at conferences and symposia in Singapore, Argentina, Denmark, Estonia and Sweden; and was the principal lecturer at the 2008 Lithuanian Conductors Summer Academy, hosted by the Lithuanian Choral Union and the Ministry of Culture. Jennifer has presented lectures and reading sessions on Singapore choral music at symposia in Croatia, Poland and the USA, and conducted the Asia Pacific Youth Choir in a programme of contemporary music of this region at the 10th World Symposium on Choral Music (Seoul, Korea, 2014).
For the International Federation for Choral Music, Jennifer co-coordinates the Asia Pacific Working Committee; she also serves on the World Choir Council, representing Singapore. She has been on jury at the World Choir Games since 2004, and also at festivals in China, Germany, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Poland and the USA. Most recently, she was on jury at the 44th Florilège Vocal de Tours (France), the 11th Busan Choral Festival and Competition (Korea), and for the Armenian Little Singers’ Choral Composition Competition.
In 2012, she was conferred the Cultural Medallion, the nation’s highest arts accolade, by the President, Republic of Singapore, for her contribution in shaping Singapore’s cultural landscape.