Jonathan Russell is a composer, clarinetist, conductor, and educator who is active in a wide variety of music, from classical to experimental to klezmer to church music. Especially known for his innovative bass clarinet and clarinet ensemble compositions, his works for bass clarinet duo, bass clarinet quartet, bass clarinet soloists, and clarinet ensembles have been performed around the world and are radically expanding the technical and stylistic possibilities of these genres.

Jonathan has received commissions from ensembles such as the San Francisco Symphony, Empyrean Ensemble, ADORNO Ensemble, Classical Revolution, Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, Imani Winds, and DZ4, and performances from numerous other ensembles and performers, including the Berkeley Symphony, San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, the BluePrint Project, the Great Noise Ensemble, the new music bands FIREWORKS, Capital M, and Oogog, pianist-percussionist Danny Holt, and pianists Sarah Cahill, Lisa Moore, Lara Downes, Matthew McCright, and Kate Campbell. Upcoming projects include compositions for So Percussion, the guitar-percussion duo The Living Earth Show, the new music ensemble REDSHIFT, and a new Bass Clarinet Concerto commissioned by the Bass Clarinet Commissioning Collective. His works are published by Potenza Music and BCP Music, and have been commercially recorded by the Sqwonk bass clarinet duo and pianist Jeffrey Jacob.
           
An avid performer on clarinet and bass clarinet, Jonathan is a member of the heavy metal-inspired Edmund Welles bass clarinet quartet and the Sqwonk bass clarinet duo, which has commissioned numerous new works and released two CDs of new American bass clarinet duets. Jonathan is a member of the new music ensemble Hotel Elefant, and has also appeared as clarinetist with the Marin Symphony, Ensemble Parallele, the Great Noise Ensemble, REDSHIFT, and the klezmer bands Zoyres, Machaya, and Adama. He is co-director of the Switchboard Music Festival, an annual eight-hour marathon concert that brings together the San Francisco Bay Area’s most creative and innovative composers and performers.

Jonathan frequently conducts his own compositions and has appeared as guest conductor of his work with the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, the Switchboard Music Festival, the Johns Hopkins Clarinet Choir, the Los Angeles Clarinet Choir, and the Claremont Clarinet Festival, where he was the 2011 Composer-in-Residence. He has also conducted over thirty readings and premieres of works by student and emerging composers.
           
A dedicated educator, Jonathan has served on the Music Theory Faculty at San Francisco Conservatory and on the Composition Faculty at the Conservatory’s Adult Extension and Preparatory Divisions. With Sqwonk and Edmund Welles, he has led workshops in Composition and Bass Clarinet Performance at San Francisco Conservatory, Princeton University, Catholic University, UCLA, Cornell University, Ithaca College, Berkeley High School, and the Vandoren Clarinet Ensemble Festival.

Jonathan has served as Music Director for two dance productions with choreographers Janice Garrett and Charles Moulton. His work on their June 2011 production, The Experience of Flight in Dreams, earned him a nomination for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award in the category of “Outstanding Achievement in Music/Sound/Text.” He has also worked as Music Director at First Congregational Church, San Francisco, as General Manager of San Francisco’s BluePrint new music series, and has written concert reviews for the San Francisco Classical Voice. He has a B.A. in Music from Harvard University and an M.M. in Music Composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His primary composition teachers have included Paul Lansky, Dmitri Tymoczko, Dan Becker, Elinor Armer, Eric Sawyer, John Stewart, and Eric Ewazen. He is currently a student in the Composition PhD program at Princeton University.