About
Jonathan Booker's music explores the physical and psychological parameters of musical performance and often presents dichotomies between density and sparsity, activity and stasis, and unity and individuality. It draws on subjects such as the social and political conditions of urban life, environmentalism, and collective struggle. Currently based in Kansas City, Mr. Booker has fulfilled commissions for a variety of organizations, including the AURA Contemporary Ensemble, Da Camera Chamber Music and Jazz, Houston Grand Opera's HGOco, and the Flute Studio at the Lamont School of Music. His work has also been recognized through awards from the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, the University of Houston's Moores School of Music, the Robert Avalon International Competition for Composers, and the Other Competition at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music.
Mr. Booker was a fellow at the 2017 Composers Conference at Wellesley College where he worked with Eric Wubbels, Yu-Hui Chang and Mario Davidovsky, and composed Divergent Trajectories for performance by the Conference Ensemble (James Baker, director). He also attended the 13th Annual Thailand International Composition Festival 2017 directed by Narong Prangcharoen, and the 2017 Bowling Green University Graduate Conference in Music, having previously attended the 2014 Oregon Bach Festival Composers. He is currently pursuing a D.M.A. in composition from the University of Missouri-Kansas City where he studies with Chen Yi, Zhou Long, and Jim Mobberley. He earned a master's degree in composition under the guidance of Rob Smith at the University of Houston's Moores School of Music, having previously received his bachelor's degree at Seattle Pacific University.
In addition to composing, Mr. Booker is active in education and the community. He is the Composition Graduate Teaching Assistant at UMKC, where he instructs first and second year undergraduate composers. He has previously served as a Teaching Artist for UMKC's Conservatory in the Schools program, as well as a Teaching Assistant at the Moores School of Music, where he instructed undergraduate theory and aural skills classes. Mr. Booker was a fellow for two seasons in Da Camera's prestigious Young Artist Program, which enabled him to partner with Literacy Advance of Houston to design and implement Literacy Through Music, an initiative that used music to teach literacy to adult ESL students.