Composer Jonathan Newman is coming to Columbia this month for a residency at the School of Music.
Newman (pictured), who is director of composition and coordinator of new music at Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, VA, will visit Mizzou from Wednesday, April 25 through Friday, April 27.
While he’s on campus, his activities will include coaching the Mizzou New Music Ensemble in rehearsal; giving composition lessons and a presentation on his works; and attending the concert by the Mizzou Wind Ensemble on Friday at the Missouri Theatre.
Wind and educational ensembles around the world frequently perform Newman’s music, and the Mizzou Wind Ensemble’s concert will include one of his best-known compositions, “Blow It Up, Start Again,” as well as “Avenue X” and “As the scent of spring rain…” In addition, Newman’s works “Moon by Night” and “1861” will be performed by Mizzou’s Symphonic Band at their concert on Sunday, April 29, also at the Missouri Theatre.
Trained as a pianist, trombonist, and singer, Newman creates music informed by an upbringing performing in orchestras, singing in jazz choirs, playing in marching bands, and accompanying himself in talent shows, incorporating pop, blues, jazz, folk, and funk into otherwise classical models.
Born in 1972, he received the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and holds degrees from Boston University’s School for the Arts and from The Juilliard School, where his collaborative works for dance enjoyed multiple performances at The Juilliard Theater, Alice Tully Hall, P.S. 122, and Dance Theater Workshop.
Newman’s music has been performed by orchestras worldwide, including the Minnesota Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the 2015 BBC Proms, and many others.
In 2016 he was appointed composer-in-residence for the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, which originally commissioned “Blow It Up, Start Again” in 2011 and performed four of his works, including the newly commissioned “Meridian,” during their 2016-17 season. Other recent projects include a re-imagined Mass for The Choir of Trinity Wall Street; a large-scale work commissioned by the Florida State University Wind Orchestra; “Prayers of Steel” for Chicago’s Gaudete Brass, and, with playwright Gary Winter, an opera based on the 1962 cult horror film Carnival of Souls.
Newman also has a connection to the Mizzou International Composers Festival’s resident ensemble Alarm Will Sound, having transcribed and arranged “Logan Rock With” and “Fingerbib” for their 2005 album Acoustica: Alarm Will Sound Performs Aphex Twin on Cantaloupe Records.
His works have been recorded on labels such as Avian, BCM, Brain Music, Cantaloupe, Cedille, Klavier, Mark Custom, Naxos, Potenza, and Summit Records. Newman also is a founding member of the composer consortium BCM International, which has released two albums.
You can hear some of Jonathan Newman’s music in the embedded players below and on his SoundCloud page.
“Blow It Up, Start Again,” a transcription with performance by the Florida State University Wind Orchestra, conducted by Richard Clary, recorded April 15, 2013 at Ruby Diamond Concert Hall in Tallahassee FL
“Stereo Action,” recorded by the Texas A&M-Commerce Percussion Ensemble at the 2010 PASIC in Indianapolis, IN
“My Hands Are A City,” as performed by the University Of Georgia Wind Ensemble, conducted by John Lynch, on their album “Millennium Canons: Looking Forward, Looking Back”