Since 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 President[11]
In 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),[12] which premiered at Roulette, in Brooklyn, NY.[13] For the 2015 Torino Jazz Festival[14] and the 2019 Berlin Jazz Festival,[15] Jonas served as a conductor[16] for Braxton's 63-person orchestra project, Sonic Genome, a six-hour-long piece.
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.[19]
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 master's degree 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-mediainstallation 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.[23]
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.
Selected Discography
Jonas has appeared on more than 65 releases.
Sax QT (Lorraine), Anthony Braxton Saxophone Quartet, 2022
Sunrise on the Tone World, William Parker's "Little Huey" Creative Music Orchestra, 1997, Aum
Child King Dictator Fool, Great Circle Saxophone Quartet, 1997, New World Records
Flowers Grow in My Room, William Parker's "Little Huey" Creative Music Orchestra, 1994, Centering
American Works for Balinese Gamelan Orchestra, Evan Ziporyn/Nyoman Windha's "Kekembangan"(for sax quartet and Balinese Gamelan Orchestra), Gamelan Sekar Jaya, 1993, New World Records
Awards and honors
Winner of the 2007 New Visions/New Mexico Award for the video portion of Memorylines, commissioned by The Santa Fe Opera.[24]
