Jean Hasse was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1958, and graduated from Oberlin College Conservatory, Ohio, specializing in piano, conducting and instrumental music education (BM, 1981); she then did graduate work and teaching at Cleveland State University. A varied career as a teacher, multi-instrumentalist, concert producer, music copyist, editor, and publisher has included managing Margun Music (then owned by Gunther Schuller) and acting as the American and Canadian Representative for Faber Music Ltd. London, as well as forming her own publishing company, Visible Music, in 1987. While living in Boston, Jean was also a member of the popular music ensemble, The Composers in Red Sneakers. She has had several composing residency fellowships at MacDowell and the Millay and has received commissions from many solo performers and chamber ensembles in the United States and United Kingdom.
Jean moved to England in December 1994 and was married to David Matthews in the mid-to-late 1990s. She holds two degrees from the University of Bristol: MA (Composition for Film and Television, 2006) and MMus (Original Compositions for Silent Films, 2016). From 2006–2015 she taught in the University of Bristol’s Department of Music: Acoustic Composition (2006–2008) and as the Course Tutor for the MA in Composition for Film and Television (2008–2015).