Blake Scanlen is a baritone singer, conductor, teacher, and composer/arranger from Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. A highly sought-after choral and ensemble singer, he performs with Voices New Zealand, Auckland Chamber Choir, and St. Matthew’s Voices, where he is Leader of the Voices. He is regularly engaged as a professional guest chorister with Bach Musica NZ and is a member of the NZ Opera Chorus, making his mainstage debut in 2025 with La bohème. His recording work includes film scores for Karl Sölve Steven, the soundtrack for the hit NZ film Tinā, and Victoria Kelly’s Requiem.

As a soloist, recent engagements have included J.S. Bach’s Easter Oratorio and Reena Esmail’s This Love Between Us (NZ Premiere) with Bach Musica NZ, Mozart’s Requiem with Neotectonic and Wairua Sinfonietta, Handel’s Messiah with Scholars Baroque Aotearoa and NZ Barok, J.S. Bach’s Mass in A with Scholars Baroque Aotearoa and Opus Orchestra, and Stainer’s The Crucifixion with the Holy Trinity Cathedral Choir. Other solo repertoire includes Fauré’s Requiem, Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs, Gounod’s Messe solennelle de Sainte Cécile, Duruflé’s Requiem and Mendelssohn’s Vom Himmel Hoch. He has also appeared as a soloist at Café du Marché with Opera Factory.

Blake is the Artistic Director of Neotectonic Vocal Ensemble, a chamber choir specialising in contemporary and early music. He directs Momentum Choir at Westlake Boys’ High School, where he also coaches barbershop quartets and teaches classroom Music and English. Previously, he has directed the Pohutukawa Singers and the choirs at Sacred Heart College, in addition to various guest conducting engagements with Pakuranga Choral and Harbour Voices. As a former emerging conductor with the Auckland Youth Choir (2021–2022), he directed the New Zealand premiere of Nico Muhly’s Bight Mass with Canons.

Blake graduated from Waipapa Taumata Rau, the University of Auckland, in 2023 with a BMus, GradDip (Mus), and GradDip (Sec. Tchg.). He studied composition with Chris Gendall and Leonie Holmes, conducting with Karen Grylls, classical voice with Te Oti Rakena and Robert Wīremu, and music education with Graham McPhail. He currently studies singing with mezzo-soprano Catrin Johnsson and is alumni of the 2026 New Zealand Opera School. In September 2026 will be moving to the UK to purse a Masters in Solo Voice Ensemble Singing at the University of York.

Duclos

Richard Taylor is one of New Zealand’s most experienced tenors, singing professionally in England, Australia and here in Aotearoa New Zealand. He has performed regularly as a soloist throughout his career, particularly in the music of Bach and Handel.

From 2010 to late 2012, Richard lived in the United Kingdom, taking up a Lay Clerk position at Durham Cathedral, singing eight services a week, along with concerts, recordings, and tours to the Netherlands, Germany, France and Scotland. While in the United Kingdom he also performed regularly at the Musica Deo Sacra festival at Tewkesbury Abbey alongside members of prestigious groups like The Sixteen and The Hilliard
Ensemble.

Richard now lives in Wellington with his family, performing regularly with New Zealand’s finest ensembles and choirs, including The Tudor Consort, Number 8 Choir, and Voices NZ.

A New Zealander of Māori and Samoan extraction, Steven is best known for his arrangements and compositions of Pacific choral music. Tracing his family lineage back to his ancestral lands of the Hokianga in the north of Aotearoa, as well as to the Samoan villages of Sāfune and Sāmauga in Savai’i, and Vailoa (Aleipata) in Upolu, he was greatly influenced by the customs and music of both cultures. In particular his childhood involvement in traditional Samoan church life, through the insistence of his maternal grandparents, meant that music, both religious and cultural, was always a feature of his upbringing.

A graduate of the University of Auckland in vocal performance and choral studies, Steven has arranged and composed music for many notable national choirs including the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir and the New Zealand Youth Choir. He currently works as a singing teacher, choral director, language coach (phonology and languages for singers), a professional singer, arranger, and composer in and around New Zealand.

Jono Palmer is a dynamic and enterprising conductor from Auckland, New Zealand. His choirs have won national and international acclaim, including two Gold Medals at the 2015 Grand Prix of Nations in Magdeburg, Germany, and many awards at regional and national festivals of the NZCF Big Sing festival. As a conductor, Jono has been selected for masterclasses at the 2017 World Symposium of Choral Music and the 2017 National Collegiate Choral Organization National Conference. In October 2018, he was a finalist in the inaugural London International Choral Conducting Competition.

He has a particular research interest in choral works inspired by te ao Māori, especially in the influence of colonisation and cultural appropriation on New Zealand choral music, which is the topic of his doctoral dissertation. In 2019, he presented a paper at the national conference of the National Collegiate Choral Organization on the performance of kapahaka music by non-Māori choirs, and in 2021 he led a round-table discussion at Indiana University on issues related to the appropriation and cultural borrowing of Indigenous music by Western composers.  

As a singer, Jono has been a member of the New Zealand Secondary Students Choir, the New Zealand Youth Choir, and Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir. Some of his solo engagements have included the role of Papageno in The Magic Flute (Class Act Opera), Superintendent Budd in Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring (University of Auckland), a Christmas concert tour with Operatunity, and guest solo performances with the South Auckland Choral Society and Auckland Choral Society. Jono has also performed several times with the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project.

Jono has sung with many of Auckland’s leading choirs including the University of Auckland Chamber Choir, Musica Sacra, Viva Voce, Bach Musica, Holy Trinity Cathedral Choir, V8 Vocal Ensemble, Voices of the Age of Discovery, and Laudamus Vocal Ensemble. At Indiana University, he has performed regularly with the HPI ensemble Concentus, as well as NOTUS Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, University Singers, the Conductor’s Chorus, and the Singing Hoosiers.

Jono has earned a MM in Choral Conducting from Indiana University, a BMus(hons) in Performance Voice, and a BA in Ancient History from the University of Auckland. He is a doctoral candidate in Choral Conducting at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, where he is currently writing the doctoral final project document.