Jonathan Newman composes music rich with rhythmic drive and intricate sophistication, creating broadly colored musical works that incorporate styles of pop, blues, jazz, folk, and funk into otherwise classical models. Trained as a pianist, trombonist, and singer, his work is informed by an upbringing performing in orchestras, singing in jazz choirs, playing in marching bands, and accompanying himself in talent shows. From opera to bubblegum pop, Newman delivers a new perspective on American concert music. Recent work includes Mass, a large-scale project with texts by poet Victoria Chang which premiered in 2018 with The Choir of Trinity Wall Street as part of their Mass Reimaginings commissioning program. In 2016 he was appointed Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras (CYSO) Composer-in-Residence; CYSO’s 2011 commission Blow It Up, Start Again has been performed by orchestras worldwide, including the Minnesota Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony, the 2015 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the 2015 BBC Proms. Other recent commissions include Prayers of Steel for Chicago’s Gaudete Brass and These Inflected Tentacles for chamber quartet. Newman’s ensemble transcriptions include arrangements of Beck, George Harrison, Puccini, Sufjan Stevens, Eric Whitacre, Led Zeppelin, and electronica recorded on Acoustica: Alarm Will Sound Performs Aphex Twin. As a MacDowell Fellow, he began work on an opera based on the 1962 cult horror film Carnival of Souls, in collaboration with playwright Gary Winter. He is currently working with Winter on an imaginary ballet suite project for the Florida State University Wind Orchestra. Newman holds degrees from Boston University’s School for the Arts and The Juilliard School, where he studied with composers John Corigliano and David Del Tredici. He resides in Virginia, where he serves as director of composition and coordinator of new music at Shenandoah Conservatory.

SHENANDOAH CONSERVATORY INVITES provides instrumental high school students multiple opportunities each year to make music with Shenandoah faculty, students and ensembles. Musicians playing string, brass, woodwind and percussion instruments will find events enabling intensive study with Shenandoah’s world-class faculty and the opportunity to make music alongside current conservatory students. Each of these events take place on Shenandoah’s beautiful Winchester campus.

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