Music Director and Principal Conductor
Philadelphia, PA
Jonathan McPhee is equally at home as a conductor for the symphony, ballet, and opera. As Music Director for Boston Ballet, he has received critical acclaim for his work with the Company and Orchestra, which is the second largest musical organization in Boston. Mr. McPhee is also Music Director for Symphony New Hampshire and the Lexington Symphony.
Last season Mr. McPhee conducted the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada as well as London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for the Company's engagement at the London Coliseum. In recent seasons he as conducted many orchestras at home and abroad including Germany's Hamburg Philharmonic, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife in Spain, and the Lithuanian National Orchestra. Other orchestras Mr. McPhee has conducted are the BBC Scottish Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, the Louisiana Philharmonic, The Hague Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Orchestre Colonne (Paris), the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House in London, the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Bergen Philharmonic in Norway.
Some of the world's most distinguished dance companies for which Mr. McPhee has served as conductor include the New York City Ballet, The Royal Ballet (England), Martha Graham Dance Company, National Ballet of Canada, The Australian Ballet, Den Norske Ballett in Norway, and The Royal Danish Ballet in Denmark. In addition to a broad repertoire in the field of dance, Mr. McPhee has conducted pops concerts, musical theatre and operetta. He has also conducted grand opera with Opera Boston, the American Opera Center in New York, and Boston University Opera Institute.
Mr. McPhee's works as arranger and composer are in the repertoires of orchestras and ballet companies around the world. His edition of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring is the only authorized reduced orchestration of this work. Mr. McPhee's compositions and arrangements are published by Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.
In 2009, Mr. McPhee was invited to conduct the Nashville Symphony as one of the conductors featured in the Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview by the League of American Orchestras. His collaboration with WCRB classical radio "Kids Classical Hour" earned a Gabriel Award in 1998. As Music Director for the Longwood Symphony Orchestra from 2005-2011, he garnered a Met-Life Award for Community Engagement in 2007 from the League of American Orchestras and the State of Massachusetts' highest award in arts and culture, the Commonwealth Award in 2011.
Mr. McPhee's best selling recording of The Nutcracker with the Boston Ballet Orchestra has sold over 75,000 copies. He has also recorded Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty and Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet with that orchestra available on iTunes, and Michael Gandolfi's Caution to the Wind on the CRI CD label. Mr. McPhee conducted the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra for the films of Martha Graham's works telecast by DANCE IN AMERICA, and conducted the score for the feature film Ballet Russes (2005).
Born in Philadelphia, Mr. McPhee received his L.R.A.M. from the Royal Academy of Music, University of London, and a B.Mus. and M.Mus. from The Juilliard School. While at Juilliard, Mr. McPhee was the recipient of a Naumburg Scholarship in Conducting and English Horn. He has studied with Leonard Brain, David Diamond, Thomas Stacy, Rudolf Kempe, Sixten Ehrling, and participated in master classes with Sir Georg Solti and James Levine while at Juilliard.
McPhee's position as music director is supported in part by the Beatrice H. Barrett Performance Fund.
