Jonathan Rainous

Curriculum Vitae

Education and Principal Teachers

PhD – Composition, 2025 (projected), ABD May 2024

University at Buffalo – Buffalo, New York
David Felder, Jonathan Golove, Robert Carl (Slee Visiting Professor), Tiffany Skidmore, composition
Presidential Fellow

MM – Composition, 2019

Ithaca College – Ithaca, New York
Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann and Evis Sammoutis, composition
Thesis: Overture for L, for piano and orchestra
Independent Research: Texture and Call and Response in Judith Weir’s Piano Concerto

BM – Composition, euphonium principal, 2015

Belmont University – Nashville, Tennessee
William Pursell, Mark Volker, and David McKay, composition
Christopher Vivio, euphonium
Presidential Fellow

Master Classes

Roger Reynolds, Yotam Haber, Sumanth Gopinath (theorist), James MacMillan, Ben Leeds-Carson, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Sally Lamb McCune, Zae Munn, Mary Ellen Childs, Joshua Marquez, Michael Fiday, Alejandro Rutty, Christopher Trapani, Matt Sargent, Augusta Read Thomas, Robert H.P. Platz, Hilda Paredes, Jeffery Mumford, James (Jake) Romig, Lei Liang, Stefano Gervasoni (4), Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann (2), Chinary Ung (2), Ricardo Zohn Muldoon, Ofer Ben-Amots, Rick Sowash

Professional Experience

Teaching Assistant, University at Buffalo, September 2020 – present

Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21 st Century Music, Assistant Managing Director, Fall 2024

  • Curate and produce off-campus concerts, including logistics, budgeting, hiring musicians, stage / lighting / visual design, and all musical choices
  • Assemble grant materials, including basic mixing of live recordings, excerpt selections from previous year’s concerts, and institutional research
  • Implement new yearly-rollout best practices for the June in Buffalo Festival, including design, marketing, direct correspondence, and social media presence.
  • Prepare applications to June in Buffalo 2025 for review
  • Coordinate logistics before and during festival
  • Point of contact for all participating composers before and during the festival
  • Research and write blog posts for all visiting composers and ensembles.
  • Update website with most recent activities

Research Assistant, Tiffany Skidmore, 2023-24 school year

  • Design and market open-to-the-public events, including social media management, posters/flyers, contacting other UB departments, and submitting press releases to area arts and events calendars
  • Assist musical productions, including creating program booklets, stage setting and prop/costume logistics, note-taking, percussion logistics, and sourcing found percussion
  • Liaise with visiting artists about instrumental and space requirements, payment paperwork, and other administrative details
  • Manage electronic resources for departmental and recital planning
  • Edit and assist with updating the Music Graduate Student Handbook
  • Audit music department website and provide feedback about utility and necessary updates

Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21 st Century Music, Production Coordinator, June 2023, 2024

  • Direct all ensembles (Talujon Percussion, Arditti Quartet, Slee Sinfonietta, and [Switch~]), master composers, participant composers, and the public to all locations
  • Maintain cleanliness and security at all physical locations (3 concert halls, 5 rehearsal spaces, offices)
  • Create all programs for concerts (11), including producing all physical copies of programs incorporating changes made the morning of each concert
  • Assist and help coordinate percussion movements across all 8 possible spaces
  • Point of contact for all ensembles, composers, Department of Music administrators (outside the festival), performers, and occasionally the public
  • Create all schedules for all ensembles, festival participants, and faculty
  • Communicate all changes up-to-the-minute with all affected parties

MUS 105, 106: Music Theory and Aural Skills – 2022-23 school year

  • Teach students to sing and audiate notated music
  • Prepare students for 1-on-1 tests in sight-singing and harmonizing
  • Grade competency tests in all above skills
  • Create all lesson plans, activities, and in-lab projects with guidance from instructor of record
  • Nominated for Departmental Teaching Award (March 2023)

Mark Diamond Research Fund, Grant Reviewer, March 2022

Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21 st Century Music, Administrative Assistant, Spring 2022

  • Research and write blog posts for all visiting composers and ensembles.
  • Assist engineers during recording sessions
  • Prepare applications to June in Buffalo 2022 for review
  • Coordinate logistics before and during festival
  • Point of contact for all participating composers before and during the festival

MUS 116: Music Theory for Non-Majors (Instructor of Record) – Fall 2021

  • Introductory study of music theory for non-music majors
  • Semester culminates in each student (no matter the background or previous knowledge) writing and notating an original song.
  • Plan, write, prepare all elements of course (classroom activities, exams, etc.)
  • Write or adapt 20, 15-20 minute modules on world music

MUS 365: Rock Music (Instructor of Record), Summer 2021

  • Musicological study of the history of rock, from immediately pre-rock (WWII) to near present day (ca. 2000)
  • Engage non-musicians in critical listening, providing instruction and practical guidance
  • Plan, write, prepare all elements of course (classroom activities, exams, etc.)

MUS 264: Music in Africa (Assistant), Spring 2021

  • Grading, attendance, and learning pedagogical best practices.
  • Train non-musicians in musical appreciation

MUS 265: Rock Music (Assistant), Spring 2021

  • Grading, attendance, and learning pedagogical best practices.
  • Train non-musicians in musical appreciation

MUS 199, 4 sections on various topics (Assistant), Fall 2020

  • Grade using 4 different specified rubrics
  • Lecture on my own music, research best practices, and the works of contemporary classical composers (e.g., 3 lectures on Caroline Shaw’s Partita for 8 Voices)
K-12 Music Teacher, North Spencer Christian Academy, 2019-2020

General Music, Study Skills, Choir, and Music Appreciation

  • Design and implement music curriculum for K-12 music
  • Instruct K-5 general music classes, including study of major composers, musical instruments, and music notation in addition to developing general musicianship
  • Teach Study Skills grades 6-8 using existing curriculum
  • Network with other teachers to ensure use of study strategies
  • Originate a college-style Music Appreciation course for grades 9-12 focused on critical listening and the intersection of history, philosophy, and musical practice
  • Instruct grades 9-12 in best practices when writing about music using formal English
  • Program Christmas and Spring concerts in conjunction with students’ individual music teacher and prepare performances
Graduate Assistant, Ithaca College, 2017-2019:

Fundamentals of Music Theory (Fall 2017, ’18)

  • Instruct and tutor students as part of the Fundamentals of Music Theory course
  • Grade all homework assignments according to standards set by faculty of record
  • Report on students of concern and work with faculty member to tailor tutoring sessions to the individual student

Composition Department (Spring 2019)

  • Plan, program, and organize concerts of new music by student composers
  • Communicate schedule of visiting faculty and ensembles to student composers
  • Manage logistics for visiting faculty and ensembles to ensure all students maximize their learning
  • Manage communications regarding intra- and extra-departmental contests as well as deliver all contest materials to judges

Rock Styles Since 1950 (Spring 2018)

  • Grade all homework for Rock Styles general education course and report on class-wide strengths and weaknesses to faculty of record
Editor-in-Chief, Gamer Symphony Orchestra, Ithaca College, 2018-2019
  • Advised and edited student orchestral arrangements, including notation, engraving, transcription, and composition lessons for arrangers
  • Guided the students through re-recognition process
Graduate Advisor, Opus X, Ithaca College, 2018-2019
  • Advise on future of the student organization, budget, and official documents
  • Network with conductors and arrange large ensemble readings

Internships

Rick Sowash Publishing, Research Intern, October 2013 – December 2014 (14 months)
  • Research performance opportunities for Mr. Sowash
  • Furnish contact information for all collegiate music schools east of the Mississppi
  • Contacts resulted in at least two festivals dedicated to his music (Northern Illinois U., U. of Delaware)
Hip-hop producer Tony Stone, October – November 2012
  • Learn the basics of commercial music production, recording, tracking, and arranging
  • Arrange strings

Musical Awards

  • Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers National Conference – String Quartet No. 1, “Imaginarium” selected for workshop and James MacMillan masterclass
  • Summer Composition Intensive Participant, July 2022
  • June in Buffalo – Participant Composer; Rapture, 1. Exuberance recorded by the Slee Sinfonietta, June 2021
  • Brian Israel / Sam Pellman Award from the Society for New Music (NY) – Composition Honorable Mention for String Quartet No. 1, May 2019
  • Ithaca ACDA Composition Competition – Winner for Haiku I, May 2019
  • Ithaca College Concerto Competition – Composition, Winner for Symphony for Post-Moderns, January 2019
  • Valéncia International Performance Academy and Festival, July 2018 – Composer, performance of excerpts from String Quartet No. 1 by Mivos Quartet

Other Experience

Transcriptionist and Engraver, freelance
Worship musician and A/V technician
  • New Life Presbyterian Church, 2017-2020 (A/V technician, coordinator, trainer)
  • Evangelical Community Church, 2010-2011 (electric bass, euphonium, A/V technician), occasional services 2012-2015
Performing Ensembles (Belmont University unless otherwise noted)
  • The Academic Complex (University at Buffalo), Fall 2020 – Fall 2022; free improvisation and occasional notated experimental works
  • Ithaca College Symphonic Winds and Concert Band
  • New Music Ensemble – 6 semesters; performances included Ewazen’s brass trio An Elizabethan Songbook, Nelhybel’s Piano-Brass Quartet, premieres of student works
  • Jazz Band II (Bass Trombone) – 4 semesters; various genres including swing, bebop, latin, and show tune arrangements
  • Wind Ensemble – 4 semesters; performances focused on 20th– and 21st-century works including David Maslanka’s Symphony No. 4, Hindemith’s Symphony in B-flat, and Steven Mackey’s Hymn to a Blue Hour
  • Concert Band – 2 semesters;
Other Conducting and Directing
  • “Prologue” from untitled opera, April 2019
  • Arrangement of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” from Turandot, May 2011

Software

Music Engraving – Dorico, Sibelius (both primary)
DAW – Logic Pro
Live Audio Processing – Max (formerly known as Max MSP)
Office – Excel (with macro programming), Microsoft Office suite, Google office suite (including Forms)
Asynchronous Teaching – Panopto
Miscellaneous – Adobe Acrobat

Professional Organizations

  • ASCAP
  • American Composer’s Forum
  • College Music Society
  • Society of Composers International
  • Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers

Non-Music Awards

  • University at Buffalo Presidential Fellow
  • Belmont University Presidential Scholar
  • Alpha Chi Honor Society
  • Eagle Scout