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composer, intermedia artist, performer, co-founder

CHRIS JONAS is a composer, intermedia/video artist, conductor and instrumentalist working on the intersection of the visual and acoustic, creating pieces that engage and challenge context.Together with Molly Sturges, Jonas founded Littleglobe in 2005. Together they have received many commissions for projects in the US and Europe, including the installation soundtrack and video for La Reina Roja (2004-2005 with painter Ricardo Mazal, commissioned by the Museo Nacional de Antropología de México in Mexico City), night (2004, an experimental video/intermedia performance project created at the Obras Artist-in- Residence Center in Alentejo, Portugal), moment (an intermedia community ensemble performance project for EU Capital of Culture Festival 2005 in Cork, Ireland), In Situ (2007, a site-specific musical composition commissioned as the closing event of SITE Santa Fe’s sixth international Biennial exhibition, “Still Points of the Turning World”), and most recently, Memorylines (2007, an intermedia community-dialogue new opera bridging cultural, economic and generational boundaries in Santa Fe (commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera and the Lensic Performing Arts Center). Jonas received the New Visions/New Mexico award for the video component of . Memorylines.

Prior to his move to Santa Fe in 2001, Jonas gained international recognition while living in New York City as a composer and saxophone player recording 25 albums, touring internationally, and leading the critically acclaimed ensemble The Sun Spits Cherries. It was during this time that he developed the musical "conduction" and compositional techniques that would characterize many of the logistical and aesthetic systems that he would apply for musical and intermedia projects. His New York City years also included long term membership in experimental/jazz bands led by Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, William Parker, The Brooklyn Sax Quartet and in Butch Morris‘ conduction ensembles. During this period he traveled worldwide guest conducting and composing for orchestras and creative ensembles and receiving commissions for orchestral works, circus noir, soundtracks, installations and new music ensembles.

Jonas received his BA (1988) from Oberlin College in Art History/Art Studio, an MA (1999) from Wesleyan University in World Music / Composition (specializing in intermedia performance) and a Certificate (2001) in Multimedia Digital Design from New York University. He is currently adjunct faculty at the College of Santa Fe’s Contemporary Music program.

www.chrisjonas.com

*photo by kate russell

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