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Jeff Kuntz is an artist, teacher, and translator who recently returned to the US after 3 years in Japan. Fluent in Italian, Portuguese, and Japanese, he has extensive teaching experience and now freelances in academic writing, radio, film, and video production, and translates for the World Health Organization’s Global Burden of Disease Study.
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A native of Columbia, Missouri, Jeff Kuntz taught himself to play guitar at the age of 13 and began studying Japanese as a junior high student. He began performing soon after with local bands and the Hickman High School Jazz Ensemble. In 1997, he enrolled at the University of Missouri – Columbia, was awarded a scholarship for jazz guitar, and joined a 5-piece jazz combo on campus. At the same time, he played gigs with a rock band and began editing audio samples and composing electronic music using the sequencing program, Impulse Tracker.
At the University of Missouri, Jeff dove into literature, languages, and writing, pursuing coursework in two foreign languages (Japanese, Italian), world literature (American, British, and Japanese), and fiction writing workshops. Professors noted his aptitude for infusing academic writing with original critical sensibility, humor, and performance art (including a choreographed soliloquey from Hamlet to Europe’s “The Final Countdown”).
In 2000, Jeff was selected to study abroad at L’Universita degli Studi in Bergamo, Italy alongside Italian students for one year, where he gained Italian fluency, and began studying Romance Philology, which traces the development of Romance languages from Vulgar Latin to their present form. Throughout the year, he travelled extensively throughout Italy and Europe, and began tutoring Italian when he returned to the University of Missouri, where he earned a BA in English (Creative Writing) in 2002.
In 2003, Jeff moved to the Brazilian Amazon to pursue a one-year English teaching position at Escola FISK. Living with host families in Manaus and Itacoatiara, he immersed himself in the local culture of the Amazon river basin. In addition to learning Portuguese, he learned to meet the needs of students ranging from grade schoolers and teenagers to a Beatles-loving local police sergeant. In his freetime, he attended local festivals and travelled to island towns and settlements along the Amazon where he encountered characters from all sectors of the equatorial New World: kids dancing Capoeira, fishermen baiting with piranhas, Brazilian hippies skinning an alligator, Scandinavians exporting Amazonian lumber, and many others.
In 2005, Jeff fulfilled a longtime goal of learning Japanese and living in Japan on the Japan Exchange & Teaching Program (JET) in the rice-producing northern city of Sakata in Yamagata Prefecture. Over the course of 3 years, he taught at 14 different public schools, worked with over 1000 students, became fluent in Japanese, and co-authored Elementary English Activities, the first standardized English teaching curriculum for Sakata City elementary schools. In 2007, he was elected President of the Yamagata Prefecture Association of JET Teachers, for which he organized trips, parties, karaoke sessions, and variety shows for 100+ attendees. In addition, Jeff performed throughout the prefecture with the CBA Irish Music Quartet with ninja & Irish bagpiper, Pol MacFionmhacai, and other musicians.
In his final year in Sakata, Jeff began writing, hosting, and producing a weekly radio show in English and Japanese called JEFF TIME! on Sakata Harbor Radio which used guest interviews, short skits, and pop music to teach conversational English. Before leaving Japan, Jeff led a trio called Les Mullets to 2nd place in Sakata City’s ROCKFEST 2008, performing songs he’d written for guitar, keyboard, and sampler.
At present, Jeff splits his time between New York, London, and Columbia, Missouri, and is embarking on freelance projects in radio and film, and translates for the Global Burden of Disease Study for the World Health Organization.