JONATHAN L. CHENETTE
Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa
Assocation Dean of the College
Blanche Johnson Professor of Music

Jonathan Chenette (b. 1954) is Blanche Johnson Professor of Music and Associate Dean of the College at Grinnell College. He has composed vocal and instrumental works in diverse genres, often treating the relationships between people and the land as a central theme. His music has received international recognition, including performances on the ISCM World Music Days in Amsterdam, at the World Harp Congress in Vienna, at the Bishop Auckland Early Music Festival in the U.K., and on an NPR national broadcast by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Iowa Composers Forum. His major choral-orchestral work Broken Ground, written in collaboration with six Iowa poets, premiered in 1996 on a concert of the Des Moines Symphony broadcast statewide over Iowa Public Television. Other major works include the opera Eric Hermannson's Soul (1993), the song cycle Oh Millersville! (1990), and the orchestral works Chamber Symphony for 31 Instruments (1983) and R ural Symphony (2000). Recent works include Elegy and Affirmation for cello and piano, a September 11 anniversary memorial composition commissioned as part of the Iowa Arts Council's "American Spirit" project; The Pale Queen of the Silent Night, for the London-based early music group Virelai; and a collaboration with folk singer Bonnie Koloc on a choral-orchestral arrangement of her Love Song for Iowa. Chenette received a PhD from the University of Chicago and grants or fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Iowa Arts Council, the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, and the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center in Bellagio, Italy. His music is available on CD's from Fleur de Son Classics, Innova, and Riverrun labels. Several of his compositions are published by Boosey & Hawkes and Theodore Presser Publications, in the Society of Composers Inc. Journal of Music Scores, and in a special "Music in the Midwest" issue of the Platte Valley Review (Spring 2002).