Jonathan Chenette

Biography

Jonathan Chenette is Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Music at Vassar College and served a semester as Acting President of Vassar in 2013. From 2004 to 2008 he was Blanche Johnson Professor of Music and Associate Dean of the College at Grinnell College, having served on the Grinnell faculty since 1983, His music has received international recognition, including performances on the ISCM World Music Days in Amsterdam, at the World Harp Congress in Vienna, at the Bishop Auckland Early Music Festival in the U.K., and on an NPR national broadcast by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. His major choral-orchestral work Broken Ground, written in collaboration with six Iowa poets, premiered in 1996 on a concert of the Des Moines Symphony. Other major works include the opera Eric Hermannson's Soul (1993), the song cycle Oh Millersville! (1990), and the orchestral composition Chamber Symphony for 31 Instruments (1983). Recent works include Onomatopoeia based on a 60-foot-long scroll painting by Santa Fe artist Signe Stuart, Macapay for Latin American duo and orchestra, Grandmother's Hymnal for tenor and piano; Frolics for oboe and English horn; Dvorak Variations for woodwind quintet; Elegy and Affirmation for cello and piano, a September 11 anniversary memorial composition commissioned as part of the Iowa Arts Council's "American Spirit" project; The Pale Queen of the Silent Night, for the London-based early music group Virelai; a collaboration with folk singer Bonnie Koloc on a choral-orchestral arrangement of her Love Song for Iowa; and Rural Symphony for the Fort Dodge Area Symphony commissioned by the Blanden Memorial Art Museum as Iowa's project in the national Continental Harmony program. Chenette received a PhD from the University of Chicago and grants or fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Iowa Arts Council, the American Music Center, and Meet the Composer. His music is available on CDs from Boosey & Hawkes, Capstone, Fleur de Son Classics, Innova, and Riverrun labels. Several of his compositions are published by Boosey & Hawkes, Fish Creek Music, and Theodore Presser Publications (Merion Music Red Cedar Collection) and in a special "Music in the Midwest" issue of the Platte Valley Review (Spring 2002).

Sound samples from compositions

Broken Ground (Web page)
Chamber Symphony (7 MB, 12:22, .mp3)
Elegy (5.2 MB, 9:11, .mp3) and Affirmation (3.7 MB, 6:33, .mp3)
Fast Track (672k, 3:20, .mov )
Frolics: 1.Singing (2.3 MB 2:34), 2.Chops (2.4 MB 2:37), 3.Joke (1.5 MB 1:39), 4.Meditation (3.7 MB 4:02), 4.Jazz (3.2 MB 3:28), .mp3
Grandmother's Hymnal (12 MB, 8:45, .mp3)
Hyperbole (1.4 MB, 8:15, .mov)
Oh Millersville! (Web page)
Onomatopoeia (Web page)
"Milking Time" from Rural Symphony (2.1 MB, 3:32, .mp3)
The Pale Queen of the Silent Night (2.4 MB, 4:16, .mp3) from Riverrun CD RVRCD62
Posthumous Orpheus (4.7 MB, 8:09, .mp3 from Capstone CD CPS8787
Wake, Sweet Muse (256k,1:14, .mov)