Jase Ess started out in the entertainment industry at age 5, recording voice overs for a Farmers Union radio campaign, and then TV commercials for the S.A. John Martins Christmas Pageant. After taking piano lessons, and having a fascination with his parent’s vinyl collection, Jase wrote his first song ‘Take Me Back’ at age 9.

 

Jase then studied drama at Johnny Young Talent School (now Mighty Good Talent School), followed by performing in two musicals at the Arts Theatre, Adelaide as Lord Evelyn Oakleigh in 'Anything Goes', Freddy Eynsford-Hill in 'My Fair Lady'. Jase then played Young Walsingham in 'Half a Sixpence' with the MBPS.

 

It was during this time that Jase attended the N.I.D.A Winter School under the instruction of the now former Head of Acting at N.I.D.A, Mr. Tony Knight.

 

In the late 90’s Jase started hosting radio at 88.5 Coast FM and later left to help start Fresh FM 92.7. After 6 years on air at Fresh and DJ’ing around Adelaide, Jase moved to Sydney in 2003. It was in Sydney that Jase met and worked with DJ Nick Jay on 'I Don't Give A Damn' which reached #11 on the ARIA Dance Charts in 2006.

 

In 2014 while working for Optus under the leadership of Saskia Spaan, Jase won the AITD 'Best Implementation of a Blended Learning Solution' for My Plan Plus. This included eLearning, video scripting, leaders guides, PowerPoint pack's and huddle packs. This program was also a finalist in the 2014 Organisational Learning Effectiveness Award'.
 

In 2016, Jase was the Platinum winner for ‘Best eLearning Design – Audio’ from the LearnX Impact Awards for his work with NewsCorp Australia.

 

In 2020, Jase returned to full time study with SAE Institute studying the Dip. Music Industry, specialising in Electronic Music Production. Six weeks after commencing study, the Covid lockdown hit and during that time Jase focused his energy into writing, recording, producing and mixing several different musical projects. This culminated in an upcoming album of 14 classical crossover compositions, a 7 track EDM album of deep house tracks named ‘Portals’ which pays homage to his early days of DJ’ing, and a collaboration with fellow SAE Graduate Andrew Devlin on a indie pop duo called ‘Two Tone Heart’.

At the end of 2020, Jase played the 'Mysterious Man' in 'Into the Woods' by Elephant in the Room productions, held in the Adelaide Botanical Gardens, sponsored by the Adelaide Botanic Gardens and the Government of South Australia as part of the Botanica Lumina Festival.

Between November 2021 to April 2022, Jase took part in an artistic collaboration by the Queensland Museum, as part of the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT:10). Working with Aotearoa (New Zealand) based artist Shannon Novak, Jase was commissioned to create a musical soundscape as a response to the visual artworks by Novak and the three humpback whale sculptures permanently suspended from the ceiling within 'The Whale Mall', a transitional space between the Gallery of Modern Art, and the Queensland Museum buildings. With reference to the difficulty in determining the sex of humpback whales as something beautiful, Ess and Novak recount, merge, and celebrate their own experiences of ambiguity in gender identity through sound. 'Currents' is a soundscape composition using industrial orchestral sounds containing whale calls, and was composed to compliment what the listener is seeing visually, and to induce a feeling of being on a magical underwater adventure.

 

In late 2022, Jase released 'Blurry' - a soulful pop ballad with gritty beats blended with orchestral elements, and combined with deep suspended reverb vibes and melodic vocal harmonies. In November 2022, the collaboration project 'Two Tone Heart' with fellow SAE graduate and multi-instrumentalist Andrew D released their debut single 'Victory', followed by 'Rendezvous' with more tracks to come in early 2024.

March 2023 saw Jase release 'Portals' and this was featured on radio stations across Australia.

With SAE Adelaide at their new campus started offering the Bachelor of Audio, and Jase returned to complete his studies as part of the inaugural cohort, and is expected to graduate 2024. During his time at SAE, Jase was a recipient of the ‘Neville Clark Award’ at the 2023 South Australian Music Awards. Jase was also nominated for two People’s Choice awards for his solo work on ‘Blurry’ and ‘Portals’, and for his ‘Two Tone Heart’ collaboration.

As an actor, Jase has worked on ‘Home and Away’, Cate Blanchett’s ‘Stateless’, Chinese TV hit ‘If Time Flows Back’, ‘Bad Boy Bubby’ and in 2021 shot scenes for the ABC comedy ‘Aftertaste’ with Erik Thompson besides many others.

 

Jase also works as a professional Voice Over Artist, working with clients including Optus, Uni of NSW, Rabobank, Vodafone, Toowoomba Council, NewsCorp Australia, Clipsal/Schneider Electric and the Leukaemia Foundation.

 

If Jase isn't near the ocean, Jase can be found in a studio unleashing creativity through song writing, poetry, audio engineering, voice overs, design work and photography.