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.
The 2025 Grammy Award-nominated album Bespoke Songs features his recent chamber music song cycle setting texts in six languages by woman poets spanning two millennia. Other recent work includes Run Love Love, Run Jane Run written for the Grammy Award-winning Akropolis Reed Quintet, Nostalgia for the Kingdom for piano trio, JRB Variations for piano, the large-scale “imagined ballet” Pi‘ilani and Ko‘olau (written on a scenario by playwright Gary Winter and commissioned by the Florida State University College of Music), and a Mass for chorus, vocal trio, and chamber orchestra on texts by poet Victoria Chang, commissioned and premiered by The Choir of Trinity Wall Street. In 2016 he was appointed Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras 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 Brussels Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the 2015 BBC Proms.
Other recent commissions include Knowledge Workers for clarinet duo (recorded with Garrick Zoeter and Jacob Moyer for OK Feel Good Music, 2024), Savoy Blue for cello and piano, and Prayers of Steel for Chicago’s Gaudete Brass (recorded on Cedille Records, 2017. Newman’s ensemble transcriptions include arrangements of Beck, George Harrison, Puccini, Sufjan Stevens, Eric Whitacre, Led Zeppelin, and electronica premiered at the 2005 Lincoln Center Festival and recorded on Acoustica: Alarm Will Sound Performs Aphex Twin (Cantaloupe Records). Newman has held writing residencies at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and at MacDowell, where as a Fellow he began an opera based on the 1962 cult horror film Carnival of Souls, also in collaboration with Gary Winter.
Wind and educational ensembles around the world frequently perform from his large catalog of works, including Blow It Up, Start Again (transcription for winds), Symphony No. 1, My Hands Are a City—a wind ensemble consortium commission based on themes of mid-century American Beat Culture, Tender Hearts (with silent film), Novel Romance, Single, Sowing Useful Truths, Avenue X, and As the scent of spring rain…
Born in 1972, Newman received the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and holds degrees from Boston University’s School for the Arts, where he studied composition with Richard Cornell, Charles Fussell, and Robert Sirota and conducting with Lukas Foss, and The Juilliard School, 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. His early training includes Boston University Tanglewood Institute and the Aspen Music Festival where he studied with composers George Tsontakis and Bernard Rands. His works have been recorded on Avian, BCM, Brain Music, Cantaloupe, Cedille, Klavier, Mark Custom, Naxos, New Focus Recordings, OK Feel Good Music, Potenza, and Summit Records.
Newman is a founding member of the composer-consortium BCM International: four stylistically-diverse composers dedicated to enriching the repertoire with exciting works for mediums often mired in static formulas. BCM recorded two albums: BCM Saves the World (Mark Custom Records, 2002) and BCM Men of Industry (BCM Records, 2004). He and his spouse, the conductor Nadège Foofat, reside with their children in Virginia, where he serves as Director of Composition & Coordinator of New Music at Shenandoah Conservatory.
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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. The 2025 Grammy Award-nominated album Bespoke Songs features his recent chamber music song cycle setting texts in six languages by woman poets spanning two millennia. Other recent work includes Run Love Love, Run Jane Run written for the Grammy Award-winning Akropolis Reed Quintet, Nostalgia for the Kingdom for piano trio, JRB Variations for piano, the large-scale “imagined ballet” Pi‘ilani and Ko‘olau (written on a scenario by playwright Gary Winter and commissioned by the Florida State University College of Music), and a Mass for chorus, vocal trio, and chamber orchestra on texts by poet Victoria Chang, commissioned and premiered by The Choir of Trinity Wall Street. In 2016 he was appointed Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras 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 Brussels Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the 2015 BBC Proms. Newman’s ensemble transcriptions include arrangements of Beck, George Harrison, Puccini, Sufjan Stevens, Eric Whitacre, Led Zeppelin, and electronica premiered at the 2005 Lincoln Center Festival and recorded on Acoustica: Alarm Will Sound Performs Aphex Twin (Cantaloupe Records). As a MacDowell Fellow he began an opera based on the 1962 cult horror film Carnival of Souls, also in collaboration with Gary Winter. 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 and his spouse, the conductor Nadège Foofat, reside with their children in Virginia, where he serves as Director of Composition & Coordinator of New Music at Shenandoah Conservatory.
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