Chris Jonas

Chris Jonas is a Berlin (Germany) and Santa Fe (US) based multi-arts composer, saxophone player, conductor, filmmaker and producer who works worldwide on collaborative projects in musical ensembles, documentary and experimental films, stage performances and in a wide variety of other media. Over the years, his works have included multi-arts collaborations and commissions with Crossing Choir, Del Sol String Quartet, TILT Brass, and for the past 30 years, with composer Anthony Braxton, performing in festivals and major arts venues worldwide.

He was co-conductor for two of Anthony Braxton's 6-8 hour 100 performer Sonic Genome project as part of the Torino Jazz Festival in 2016 and Berlin Jazz Festival in 2019, producer of the projected video for Braxton's opera Trillium J: The (Non)Unconfessionables in 2014, and a member of the Anthony Braxton Saxophone Quartet which toured the EU in Summer of 2022. He was co-composer and associate producer for the feature documentary Sembene! which premiered at Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals, and is the composer and video artist for Jonas' immersive video and live performance series GARDEN. 

Starting in the 1990s, he has recorded over 75 albums, performing with many of new music's most adventurous artists including working as arranger/ performer with Cecil Taylor 1995-97, in William Parker's Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra throughout the 1990s, with Butch Morris, Brooklyn Saxophone Quartet and with many others. He has been a member in Goggle Saxophone Quartet since 1989, and leads his own ensembles including the NYC Sun Spits Cherries, his Desert ensembles in Santa Fe, Berlin and Bologna, Italy and various others.

For over 20 years, he was co-founder and Co-Director of Little Globe, a US multi-arts nonprofit, producing and directing hundreds of creative projects across New Mexico. These included collaborative PBS documentaries, community-created operas with Santa Fe Opera, multi-arts, multi-generational storytelling projects, and the hyperlocal pandemic-era TV series Little Globe TV.

With Little Globe he has been producer, composer, director, and team member for many of the organization's large scale multi-arts projects including Moment (2005 EU Capital of Culture Cork, Ireland), Memorylines (2007 with the Santa Fe Opera), Common Ground Cuba (2008), City of Dreamers (2016), ¡Presente!: Stories of Home, Belonging and Displacement (2016-present), and Little Globe TV (2020-present).

He has served as President or Vice President for the Tri-Centric Foundation, the archiving and producing body for the works of Anthony Braxton since 1998. He holds degrees in music and intermedia from Oberlin College, Wesleyan University, and New York University.

Jonas received the United States Artist Award in 2008 for his multidisciplinary arts work, one of the highest distinctions in the arts in the United States.

Awards

Meet the Composer Commissioning USA Award 2017; United States Artists Award 2008; 2007: New Visions/New Mexico Award 2007.