"I am very enthusiastic about [Jonathan McPhee's] talent...astonishing"
--Leonard Bernstein
Jonathan McPhee is equally at home as a conductor for the symphony, ballet, and opera. In addition to serving the community of Lexington as Music Director for the Lexington Symphony, Mr. McPhee is Music Director for Boston Ballet, the Nashua Symphony in New Hampshire, and the Longwood Symphony Orchestra.
Recent guest engagements include 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 National Philharmonic Orchestra 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, and American Ballet Theatre. 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.
Mr. McPhee has conducted many of the world’s leading soloists as well as the generation of rising stars including cellist Yo-Yo Ma, flutist Paula Robison, pianists Max Levinson and Virginia Eskin, violinists Stephane Chase, Augustin Hadelich, and Stefan Jackiw, as well as singers Robert Honeysucker and Harolyn Blackwell.
Mr. McPhee's works as arranger and composer are in the repertoires 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. Recent original works include Nightingale, Images for Orchestra and a revised arrangement of Aaron Copland’s ballet Rodeo, commissioned by the Copland Trust and Boosey & Hawkes, as well as a new edition of Stravinsky’s complete Firebird for Boosey & Hawkes recently performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Baltimore Symphony.
Mr. McPhee's best selling recording of The Nutcracker with the Boston Ballet Orchestra has sold over 70,000 copies. He has also recorded Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty and Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet with that orchestra. Mr. McPhee recorded Samuel Barber’s Cave of the Heart, Gian Carlo Menotti’s Errand into the Maze, Edgard Varese’ Integrales, Offrandes, and Octandre with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra for the films of Martha Graham's works telecast by DANCE IN AMERICA, as well as Michael Gandolfi’s Caution to the Wind on the CRI label. His collaboration with WCRB classical radio “Kids Classical Hour” earned a Gabriel Award in 1998. He also conducted the sound track for the recent feature film entitled BALLET RUSSE with the Louisiana Philharmonic.
Born in Philadelphia, Mr. McPhee received his L.R.A.M. from the Royal Academy of Music, and a B.M. and M.M. 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 master classes with Sir Georg Solti and James Levine at Juilliard.
"McPhee has a real gift for subtly emphasizing inner voices in the music that adds special color to the most familiar passages."
--Boston Herald
