Called the “world's most popular 21st-century opera and art song composer,” by the Wall Street Journal, Jake Heggie joins SFCM’s composition faculty in Fall, 2025. 

Heggie is best known for Dead Man Walking, the most widely performed new opera of the last 25 years. With a libretto by Terrence McNally, it has been mounted by major theaters in more than 80 international productions. His critically acclaimed operas Moby-Dick, Three Decembers, and It’s a Wonderful Life, with libretti by Gene Scheer, have also established themselves in the classical canon. Heggie’s 10 full-length operas, numerous one-acts, and more than 300 art songs have been performed on five continents. Heggie was also named Musical America’s Composer of the Year for 2025.

Over the last 25 years, Heggie has found it especially meaningful to give back to students – to share what he's learned – by participating in mentorship programs for young composers, as well as short artist residencies at universities, conservatories, and summer programs throughout the United States and abroad.

Heggie actively seeks out projects that invite a wide range of perspectives. Recent examples include Intelligence, based on the true story of women who infiltrated the Confederate White House,and Songs for Murdered Sisters, his collaboration with Margaret Atwood, created in response to the global epidemic of gender-based violence and nominated for Classical Album of the Year at the Juno Awards. 

Heggie has longstanding creative partnerships with mezzos Frederica von Stade, Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, and Jamie Barton, whose Heggie project Unexpected Shadows earned a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. Heggie continues to write all his work by hand, believing that a visceral, physical connection to the score is an essential part of composition. Since 1993, he has made his home in San Francisco, where he lives with his husband, Curt Branom.