Jonathan Santore’s compositions have engaged and excited performers and audiences throughout the United States and Europe. Named a 2010 Individual Artist Fellow by the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, he serves as Composer in Residence for the New Hampshire Master Chorale, which won a “Best of NH 2008” award from New Hampshire Magazine for works he created for the ensemble. Santore was a winner of the 1999 American Composers Forum Welcome Christmas! Carol Contest, and was named New Hampshire Composer of the Year for 2006 (an honor he last won in 1999). Santore has won several other awards for his compositions, including Second Prize in the 2007 University of South Carolina Choral Composition Contest, Finalist in the 2005 NUVOVOX Choral Awards and the 2003 Penfield Music Commissioning Project/Wegmans Band Composition Contest, Special Mention in the 2002 British Trombone Society/Brass in Association Composition Contest, Honorable Mention in the 2000 Britten-on-the-Bay Composition Competition, and performances at the New Hampshire Music Festival, the national conferences of the North American Saxophone Alliance and the Society of Composers, Inc., and the Ithaca College Choral Composition Contest. His works have been performed by ensembles including Minnesota’s VocalEssence Chorus, the Choir of Rochester Cathedral, England, and Conspirare, and have been broadcast regionally by Maine Public Radio and Television, and nationally by Public Radio International. He has conducted performances of his own compositions in the United States and Europe, and his works have been recorded by California’s Octagon New Music Ensemble and published by Alliance Music, American Carillon Music Editions, Gold Branch Music, Manduca Music, Walton Music, and Yelton Rhodes Music.
Currently Professor of Music Theory and Composition and Chair of the Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire (where he has been selected four times for inclusion in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers), Santore began his musical career as an All-State trumpet player in his native east Tennessee. He went on to study composition with Stephen Jaffe, Eugene Kurtz, Donald Grantham, and William Kraft, and holds academic degrees from Duke University, The University of Texas at Austin, and UCLA. Before moving to New England, Santore held teaching positions at Occidental College, California State University, Los Angeles, and the University of Minnesota. He is also active as a music theorist and as a conductor.
For further information, including MP3 files and score samples, please visit Jonathan's web site at
www.jonathansantore.com