Chris Jonas

Chris Jonas (born September 3, 1966, in Newport Beach, California) is a Santa Fe, New Mexico-based composer, conductor, soprano and tenor saxophone player, filmmaker, and video artist.

Jonas has performed, recorded, and toured around the world with many musicians including TILT Brass.., the Crossing Choir, Del Sol String Quartet, Butch Morris, Assif Tsahar, James Emery, Myra Melford, William Parker, Cecil Taylor, and Anthony BraxtonSince 1997, Jonas has acted as a board member of the Tri-Centric Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to the ongoing work of Anthony Braxton, and is currently acting there as Vice PresidentIn 2014, Jonas worked with Anthony Braxton in partnership with the Tri-Centric Foundation to create a projected video environment for Braxton's third major production of an opera, Trillium J (The Non-Unconfessionables), which premiered at Roulette, in Brooklyn, NY. For the 2015 Torino Jazz Festival and the 2019 Berlin Jazz Festival, Jonas served as a conductor for Braxton’s 63-person orchestra project, Sonic Genome, a six-hour-long piece.

Among the venues Jonas performed at and worked with include Lincoln Center, The Torino Jazz Festival, the Berlin Jazz Festival, the San Francisco Jazz Festival, Roulette Intermedium, Casa del jazz, De Singel in Antwerp, The Lensic Theater, the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork, Ireland, Banlieues Bleues Festival in Paris, The Verona Jazz Festival, FMP Total Music Meeting with Cecil Taylor and Steve Lacy, the Knitting Factory, Yoshis, The Stone, JVC Jazz Festival, the Vision Festival, Icebox, the Center for New Music, Z-Space in San Francisco, the National Hispanic Cultural Center, Gropius Bau in Berlin, and the National Theater and Concert Hall in Taipei, Taiwan.

Jonas and artist/composer Molly Sturges co-founded a non-profit in New Mexico named, Littleglobe, an arts and social justice organization, where Jonas currently acts as Co-Director. Also with Sturges, Jonas is the recipient of the 2008 United States Artists Award in music and media as a Simon Fellow. He is a winner of the 2012 Meet the Composer/Commissioning USA Award for his multi-media immersive installations titled, GARDEN. Jonas attended Oberlin College where he played music but majored in art, earning his bachelor's degree in Art History/Art Studio in 1988, after which he moved to Oakland, CA to pursue a career in painting. In 1989, he met Anthony Braxton at Mills College, who would later become his lifelong collaborator.In 1991, Jonas moved to New York, studying jazz at the New School for Social Research. Over the next decade he joined many projects there including those of William Parker, Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, the Brooklyn Sax Quartet, and Butch Morris‘ conduction ensembles.From 1992 to 1994, Jonas studied theory, harmony, and composition at Mannes School of Music with Robert Cuckson. During this time he became part of William Parker’s Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra from 1992 to 2001. In 1993, Jonas helped to found the New York Improvisors Collective (1994–95), which eventually became the Vision Festival.

From 1995 to 1997, Jonas worked with Cecil Taylor to build an open-framework of scores for Taylor's compositions. It was also in 1995 that Jonas began working with Anthony Braxton. From 1996 to 1999, Jonas studied composition at Wesleyan University where he earned a Masters in World Music/Composition. It was there he met his future collaborator Molly Sturges. In 2001, Jonas earned a Certificate in Multimedia Digital Design from New York University before relocating to Santa Fe, New Mexico with Sturges. Sturges and Jonas would go on to win the 2008 United States Artists Award in music and media as a Simon Fellow, and to co-found Littleglobe in Santa Fe, NM. Jonas is also a winner of the 2012 Meet the Composer/Commissioning USA Award for GARDEN, a live music and immersive multi-media installation series.

Jonas has received commissions for large-scale installation, video, and musical performance works in the US and in Europe. These works include pieces with the Del Sol String Quartet, the Crossing Choir, Duo B Experimental Band, and the Chicago Improvisors Group. He's received commissions from the Museo Nacional de Antropología de México in Mexico City for the video and soundtrack installation of La Reina Roja (2005), and Odenwald 1152 (2007), both with collaborator Molly Sturges and painter Ricardo Mazal. Other commissions include the Obras Artist-in-Residence Center in Alentejo, Portugal for night (2004), the Triskel Arts Centre and the European Capital of Culture Festival in Cork, Ireland for moment (2005), SITE Santa Fe’s sixth and seventh international Biennial exhibitions for In Situ (2007) and Malangan (2009), and was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera and the Lensic Performing Arts Center for Memorylines (2007), a contemporary opera for which Jonas received the 2007 New Visions/New Mexico Contract Award.Jonas has taught Music and Media at Wesleyan University, the College of Santa Fe, and for the New Media Arts Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, NM.