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Jonathan Newman composes music rich with rhythmic drive and intricate sophistication. A 2001 recipient of the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Newman creates broadly colored musical works, often incorporating styles of pop, blues, jazz, folk, and funk into otherwise classical models.

Upcoming projects include Symphony No. 1, a wind ensemble consortium commission based on themes of mid-century American Beat Culture, and a new work for percussion ensemble for premiere in 2009. Recent commissions include Concertino, for flute solo, chamber winds, and piano, premiered in 2008 by a ten-ensemble consortium, My Hands Are a City, commissioned by a consortium of seventeen ensembles and recorded by the University of Georgia Wind Ensemble (Naxos), and Climbing Parnassus, commissioned for the 2008 Japan Wind Ensemble Conductors Conference. Other recent performances include The Vinyl Six, written for the chamber group Avian Music, and recorded by them for their 2008 CD release, arrangements of electronica for Acoustica: Alarm Will Sound Performs Aphex Twin (Cantaloupe), premiering at the 2005 Lincoln Center Festival, and Metropolitan, premiering with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra in 2005. In 2007 he began work on an opera based on the 1962 cult horror film Carnival of Souls, in collaboration with playwright Gary Winter.

Born in 1972, Newman holds degrees from Boston University's School for the Arts (BM), where he studied composition with Richard Cornell and Charles Fussell and conducting with Lukas Foss, and The Juilliard School (MM), where he studied with composers John Corigliano and David Del Tredici and conducting with Miguel Harth-Bedoya. At Juilliard, his collaborative works for dance enjoyed multiple performances at The Juilliard Theater, Alice Tully Hall, P.S. 122, and Dance Theater Workshop. Early training includes Boston University Tanglewood Institute and the Aspen Music Festival where he studied with composers George Tsontakis and Bernard Rands.

Newman's catalog for wind ensembles includes Moon by Night, 2003 winner of the bi-annual NEA/Merrill Jones Composition Award. His work with the University of Nevada Las Vegas Wind Orchestra includes Chunk, a 2003 commission and title track of their 2004 CD release (Mark Custom Records), and OK Feel Good, a 1999 commission recorded on 3 Steps Forward (Klavier). Since 2002, The Rutgers Wind Ensemble has recorded three of his ensemble works on three CD titles (Mark Custom Records), and Tokyo's TAD Wind Symphony recorded his music on two CD's (Basic Video Arts).

Newman is a founding member of the composer-consortium BCM International: four stylistically-diverse composers from across the country, dedicated to enriching the repertoire with exciting works for mediums often mired in static formulas. BCM's music has generated a following of champions around the world, several thousand fans in an active online community, and two recordings: "BCM Saves the World" (2002, Mark Custom Records) and "BCM Men of Industry" (2004, BCM Records). He resides with his wife Melissa Schlachtmeyer, a costume designer, and their daughter Amelia, in New York City.

[September 2008]