School of Music > Faculty & Staff > Faculty A-Z > Christopher Wendell Jones

Christopher Wendell Jones

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Education
BM New England Conservatory
MM Indiana University
MM University of Calgary
DMA Stanford University

About
Dr. Christopher Jones is a composer of intricately designed music that explores issues of identity, narrative and form in distinctive, unconventional ways. His music has been performed in North America and Europe at venues including the Darmstadt Ferienkurse in Germany, the Ictus International Composition Seminar in Brussels, Merkin Hall in New York and the Milwaukee Art Museum. Jones has particular interest in composing chamber music and has worked with ensembles such as the St. Lawrence String Quartet, the Callithumpian Consort, the Ictus Ensemble and Ensemble Inauthentica, and soloists such as guitarist, Magnus Andersson, violinist, Mark Menzies, and flautist, Lisa Cella, Among his honors are a commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation for a large ensemble work for sfSound, three commissions from the American Composers Forum, and a Cohn Fellowship at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Woodside, CA.

An active pianist and conductor, Jones has a strong affinity for experimental and avant-garde music. He has given numerous premieres and has worked with composers such as Sylvano Bussotti, John Cage, Julio Estrada, Helmut Lachenmann, and Stefano Scodanibbio. He brings together his interests in composition, performance and improvisation as pianist, conductor and co-director of the innovative Bay Area ensemble, sfSound. Deeply committed to the production and promotion of contemporary music, Jones has also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the new music group, Earplay in San Francisco, and as Contemporary Music Production Manager at Stanford University.

Currently residing in Chicago, Jones joined the music faculty at DePaul University as Assistant Professor of Musicianship and Composition in 2011. He previously taught composition and music theory at Stanford, San Francisco State, and San José​ State Universities, and worked extensively with young composers at Lowell High School in San Francisco through a Composer-in-the-Schools residency sponsored by the American Composers Forum. Jones completed a doctorate in composition at Stanford University, and previously earned degrees in composition from the University of Calgary, and piano from Indiana University and the New England Conservatory. He studied composition with Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Harvey, Jonathan Berger, Allan Gordon Bell and David Dzubay, and piano with Evelyne Brancart, Patricia Zander and Michael Mauldin.