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[1200 word – literary biography]
Born in Harrisburg Pennsylvania, Jonathan Ragonese spent his childhood in the town of New Cumberland. His father owned a construction company and his mother worked for the Public Utility Commission. Jonathan discovered the joy of music spending afternoons at his next-door neighbors, Uncle Bill and Aunt Kathy, who introduced him to long playing records of Louis Prima and a variety of other recording artists. Around the same time he discovered the music of his grandfather – Don Rodney – a composer and guitarist from the big band era. Ragonese learned about his music through 78 rpm discs and Guy Lombardo fan sites on the search engine ‘Ask Jeeves’. Jonathan studied piano for over a decade with Russian-American pianist and professor of Russian, Fred Van Doren. His first eight years of saxophone training were with Susan Loy, professor at York College.
Shortly after his parents purchased him a tenor saxophone, Jonathan became enamored with a local dance band, The Herm Miller Orchestra. His grandfather, Bob Miller, was friends with Herm, and took Jonathan to one of the concerts and dances. After a few evenings watching the band, Jonathan asked Herm what he needed to do to join the band. Herm said he would have to learn how to play clarinet. For his twelfth birthday, Jonathan got a clarinet. At thirteen years old, he had his first engagement with the band – three-hours of sight-reading with a band of seasoned professionals. This experience, crystalized Jonathan’s desire to pursue a career as a musician.
During the same year, Ragonese emailed pianist and founder of the Central Pennsylvania Friends of Jazz, Steve Rudolph, after having watched him perform. With juvenile boldness he proclaimed he was ‘ready’ to play with him. Rudolph kindly responded, recommending a few local jam sessions in Harrisburg. This began the relationship of musical father and son that has lasted twenty years. Jonathan considers his time learning from musicians in the Harrisburg area as his most important educational experience. He learned about musical communication and friendship from Ronnie Waters and Jimmy Wood, friends for over six decades and a collective musical memory spanning nearly the entire history of Harrisburg’s touring stop for the world’s great musicians between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Jonathan spent his nights during high school learning from Central PA’s rich community in a variety of bars and performance spaces. During this time, he formed a lasting friendship with mentor, saxophonist Tim Warfield. While attending a summer camp, Jonathan worked with Garry Dial, Dick Oatts, Jay Anderson and John Riley. This experience – prior to YouTube and social media – gave Jonathan his first understanding of musical life in New York, while making him aware of many artists he was not yet familiar with at their instructive urging. He spent the next few years attending jam sessions and ardently transcribing over 250 saxophone solos.
A pivotal turning point came in Jonathan’s acceptance into the Grammy Jazz Ensemble, led by Justin DiCioccio, then head of the Manhattan School of Music. It was in the ensemble that Jonathan met many friends and collaborators. In 2007 he began his studies at the Manhattan School of Music with Bob Mintzer. Under his tutelage and in a chance encounter at a vocal recital of a friend, Jonathan discovered composition, Italian opera, and the works of Giacomo Puccini. What had once been attempts at tune writing, turned into a new passion of musical composition. The initial years in Manhattan were spent voraciously studying the history of the saxophone and compositional inquiry. Jonathan showed some of his new work to mentor Steve Wilson, and Wilson offered to premiere a work for his band and string quartet. Around the same time Jonathan met David Noon – historian, composer, student of Darius Milhaud and Karl Kohn – and was forever changed. Noon’s subtle insistence on the systematic study of composition and history gave new life to every pursuit. Most notably at the age of twenty, after having read next to nothing in high school, Jonathan discovered poetry and literature through David’s interests.
The next ten years in New York City proved fruitful, challenging, and rewarding. Jonathan wrote many volumes worth of unpublished poetry, reading often at public readings and among friends. Some of his poetic works were used in musical offerings (American Dialogues: Introduction 2014, commissioned by MoMA). He wrote nearly 200 musical works including: sets of non-poems for chamber musicians, big band and orchestral music, wind quintets, mixed chamber ensembles, silent-film score for big band (Pandora’s Box 2017, commissioned by the New York Film Festival) saxophone ensemble, and many pieces for improvising ensembles. For a period, he lived with musical collaborator and pianist Emmet Cohen, at a fitting house number, 251. To make ends meet, he taught at a variety of institutions around the five boroughs. These experiences opened his heart to a passion for education. Most notably, with early childhood educator, Renee Bock, Jonathan started Music Before Words, an experimental improvisatory musical experience for children three years and under. He met his wife, Dutch violinist Karen Dekker, in 2012 and they married in 2014.
In 2017 Jonathan began teaching at the Wells School of Music as saxophone instructor. In 2020 he joined the faculty full-time as Director of Jazz Studies and Instructor of Saxophone. The move to south-eastern Pennsylvania proved rewarding on many levels. Among his professional endeavors, Jonathan has recorded four new recordings with numerous musicians from different fields: The Sun Flung Spangles vols 1 & 2 (2023), pale blue flowers (2023), a duo recording with saxophonist Adam Larson, and a recording with string sextet for Cuban vocalist Xiomara Laugart. His weekly work with saxophonists has led him to focus on creating pedagogical works to be used in lessons. This work has also reignited his interest in the history of the saxophone, revisiting his work as a teenager. This research includes a running database of every documented saxophonist from the 1840s to ten years ago; a curated database of repertoire for the instrument; and most notably two courses focusing on the music and musicians who shaped the definition of the instrument. Working as conductor and director of the Criterions Jazz Ensemble (the country’s longest running university big band) has re-enlivened his passion for the variety of potentials afforded by the ensemble. He considers himself luckiest of all for the opportunity to engage and work with artists including Orrin Evans, Maria Schneider, Nicholas Payton, David Liebman, Bob Curnow, Tim Warfield, and many others. He has created a new Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation minor and is currently working on a series of 42 lectures on Creativity & Improvisation.
He is the Artistic Director of the Central Pennsylvania High School All Star Big Band, and the Alliance for Creativity and Improvisation – a community of educators and institutions focusing on how to expand educational offerings. Compositions in the last three years have focused mainly on solo works, saxophone ensemble, and concerti (non-poems 6-8, Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and Wind Ensemble, letters from an unknown woman to an unknown people a double concerto for trumpet, marimba, and orchestra). He is a father of three and attempts to read in his spare time. More information can be found at www.jonathanragonese.com
[750 word – chronological listing biography]
Jonathan Ragonese, composer-arranger-saxophonist, is the Director of Jazz Studies and Instructor of Saxophone at the Wells School of Music of West Chester University, Pennsylvania. Jonathan’s work has been described as “elegiac, gravity-defying” (Downbeat Magazine) spinning “platinum-hard tensility to spider-web gossamer fragility” (New York City Jazz Record). It “…explores soft, meditative melodies surrounded by silence” (Second Inversion) and “places the viewer in the middle of an open field in its heart-wrenching delicate melodies.” (I Care if You Listen) As a saxophonist he has performed and recorded with a wide array of musicians including Steve Wilson, David Liebman, Jon Faddis and the Jazz Orchestra of New York, The Sirius String Quartet, Adam Neely, Torgbui Gideon Foli Alorwoyie, The Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Wallace Roney, Tim Warfield, Tin Can Buddha, Roger Humphries, Clarence Penn, John Swana, Jimmy Heath, Butch Morris, and Steve Rudolph. As a composer his works have been commissioned by the New York Film Festival, saxophonists Steve Wilson and David Liebman, Jazz @ Lincoln Center, The Museum of Modern Art, Emmet Cohen, The Vermont Mozart Festival Orchestra, The Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, clarinetist of the Imani Winds, Mark Dover, flute and piano duo The Righteous Girls, and a variety of universities and high schools. His first recording, Ardent Marigolds, was released in 2013, a duo with musical father Steve Rudolph. In 2014, Ragonese premiered his ‘Not-this’ for two saxophones, at Carnegie Hall. The 2014 Summergarden Series at the Museum of Modern Art featured the premiere of American Dialogues: Introduction. Vanity Fair said, “the gelato and prosecco options pair well with the moody music.” The improvisational work included a long narrative poem, chance operations, and cut-up techniques. Classical saxophonist, Aiwen Zhang, premiered non-poem 2 at the National Music for All Conference in Indianapolis, IN. That same year, Jonathan gathered a group of saxophone peers – including Patrick Bartley, Alex LoRe, Jay Rattman, Lucas Pino – for the 200th birthday celebration of Adolphe Sax at the MET Museum. In the spring of 2017, Mark Dover and Jeremy Ajani Jordan premiered non-poem 4 on ‘Latenight @ National Sawdust’; an arrangement for violin was later premiered and recorded by violinist Kristin Lee. In the summer of that year, Jonathan recorded an hour-long duo concert, two men singing, with Tim Warfield, the first in his explorations of free improvisation. Pandora’s Box, a new film score for G.W. Pabst’s iconic film, was commissioned by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and premiered at Alice Tully Hall in October of 2017, with Jonathan conducting a 17-piece ensemble. At the 2018 YoungArts MET Gala, Jonathan arranged for and conducted a chamber orchestra with featured Broadway stars Ben Ross and Micaela Diamond. Broadway World said, “the finale was an unforgettable duet.” In the summer of 2018, Jonathan arranged twelve works of Leonard Bernstein to celebrate the composer’s 100th birthday at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, A Mosaic of Wonder, featuring Micaela Diamond, Alex LoRe, Mark Dover, Mark Whitfield Jr., Glenn Zaleski and many others in a chamber ensemble. In recent years, Jonathan has written two concerti for solo instruments and symphonic ensembles. He premiered his Concerto for Saxophone and Wind Ensemble in 2021, and in April of 2022 portions of letters from an unknown woman to an unknown people, a double concerto for Trumpet and Marimba was premiered by William Stowman and Erik Forst and the Messiah University Symphony Orchestra. NEA Jazz Master, David Liebman commissioned and premiered non-poem 7 with the Dalí String Quartet in 2022. In 2023 saxophonists David Stambler (Penn State), Doug O’Connor (Pershing’s Own and Peabody) performed and premiered non-poem 6 ‘how to paint sunglight’ at a variety of recitals and festivals. Derek Granger, up-and-coming soloist, commissioned and premiered non-poem 8 for solo saxophone at conferences for the North American Saxophone Association. Jonathan has worked closely with piano soloist Erika Dohi, photographer Jonno Rattman, creative artist Michael Mwenso and tap-dance artists Michela Marino Lerman and Dan Mitra. Over the past decade he has worked on arranging and transcription projects for Samora Pinderhughes, Vincent Herring, Ornette and Denardo Coleman, and David Baker. Jonathan continues a variety of pursuits including writing essays, poetry and interviews. He is a passionate amateur scholar of James Joyce. His primary teachers are David Noon (composer and historian, student of Darius Milhaud & Karl Kohn) Bob Mintzer (composer, saxophonist and recording artist) Steve Wilson (saxophonist), David Liebman (saxophonist and composer) Garry Dial (pianist and composer) and Dick Oatts (saxophonist). For more information visit: jonathanragonese.com
[275 word – brief overview]
Jonathan Ragonese, composer-arranger-saxophonist, is the Director of Jazz Studies and Saxophone Professor at the Wells School of Music at West Chester University. As a saxophonist he has performed and recorded with a wide array of musicians including Steve Wilson, David Liebman, Jon Faddis, The Sirius Quartet, Gideon Alorwoyie, the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Tim Warfield, Tin Can Buddha and Steve Rudolph. As a composer his works have been commissioned and premiered by The New York Film Festival, saxophonist Steve Wilson, Jazz @ Lincoln Center, The Museum of Modern Art, the Vermont Mozart Festival Orchestra, the Harrisburg Symphony, the The Righteous Girls, Bucknell University, Messiah University, West Chester University and the Harrisburg Youth Symphony. Pandora’s Box, a new film score for G.W. Pabst’s iconic film, was commissioned by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and premiered at Alice Tully Hall in October of 2017, with Jonathan conducting a 17-piece ensemble. In 2014 Ragonese premiered his ‘Not-this’ for two saxophones, at Carnegie Hall. His Concerto for Saxophone and Wind Ensemble was premiered in 2021, and in April of 2022 portions of letters from an unknown woman to an unknown people, a double concerto for Trumpet and Marimba was premiered by William Stowman and the Messiah University Symphony Orchestra. Active educational endeavors include lectures, writings, and the development of Music Before Words, a music program for infants with educator Renee Bock. His first recording, Ardent Marigolds, was released in 2013, a duo with musical father Steve Rudolph. He has many other recordings to his name since that time, including pale blue flowers and two men singing. In 2024 four new recordings are set for release. For more information, visit: www.jonathanragonese.com