June in Buffalo 2024: Jonathan Golove

 Jonathan Golove

University at Buffalo website

In addition to directing this year’s festival, Jonathan Golove will act as a senior composer in the upcoming 2024 June in Buffalo. Golove is an associate professor of music, composition and cello, at the University at Buffalo and directs the Center for 21st Century Music. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of California at Berkeley, graduate studies in cello performance at the University of Southern California, and PhD in composition at the University at Buffalo.  

An accomplished cellist, Golove has performed with ensembles across Europe and North America. He has performed on traditional, electric, and theremin versions of the instrument and recorded with several world-renowned ensembles, including Michael Vlatkovich Quartet, Ubudis Trio, and Vinny Golia’s Large Ensemble. He has been featured as soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Slee Sinfonietta, New York Virtuoso Singers, and, as a baroque cellist, with the USC Early Music Ensemble.  

Read more about Golove in this Edge of the Center post from last year:

Jonathan is by no means a newcomer to JiB! His first year as a performer and participant composer was 1994, and he has been active at the festival in various capacities nearly every June since then. In 2001, he served as senior composer, and in 2013 and 2015, as artist faculty for the June in Buffalo Performance Institute, which ran concurrently with the main festival. He has appeared as a soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic (Morton Feldman’s Cello and Orchestra), as a member of the Slee Sinfonietta and Baird Trio, among other ensembles, and as a solo performer. Among his original works heard at June in Buffalo are E.Q. for electric string quartet, Closely Related Fungi for saxophone quartet, and (Max’s 24 Hours) Pray-O-Mat for two cellos and IRCAM Signal Processing Workstation.

Mr. Golove’s original compositions have been performed at venues including the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C., Venice Biennale, Festival of Aix-en-Provence, Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society II, Encuentro Internacional de Jazz y Música Viva (Monterrey, Mexico), Centre Court Festival (Cologne, Germany) and the Kitchen. He has received awards and grants for his work from organizations including ASCAP, the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music, and Meet the Composer.

One of only a handful of players of the theremin cello, Golove has appeared as soloist with the Asko/Schoenberg Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, and International Contemporary Ensemble, and he is a member of the 1. Deutsche Stromorchester. As an electric cellist, he is particularly active in the fields of creative improvised music and avant-garde jazz. He has performed and recorded with jazz groups including the Michael Vlatkovich Tryyo and Quartet, Ubudis Quartet, and Vinny Golia’s Large Ensemble, and made appearances at the Vancouver Jazz Festival, the Eddie Moore Jazz Festival (Oakland), and the International Meeting of Jazz and New Music (Monterrey, Mexico). He has recorded for the Albany, Centaur, FMR, pfMENTUM, and Nine Winds labels, and his performances and interviews have been heard in broadcasts by numerous National Public Radio stations, as well as on Radio Nuevo León, West German Radio, CBC, and Radio France. Jonathan is an Associate Professor in UB’s Department of Music and served as department chair for the past six years. He looks forward to welcoming an inspiring group of participant composers to June in Buffalo 2023! He is also excited to work with performer colleagues from JiB’s resident ensembles to present a trio of his original works spanning several decades. Golove is honored to be joined by Arditti Quartet cellist (and founding member of Ensemble Recherche) Lucas Fels in Some Road Signs in Southern France (1988/89) for cello duo, a set of miniatures he composed during a year studying in Cologne. Talujon will partner with soprano Tiffany DuMouchelle to perform Here and There (1993) for soprano and percussion ensemble, with text by the award-winning poet Susan Lewis. Tiffany will also sing Imaginary Songs II (2004), a second collaboration between Golove and Lewis, in the company of flutist Nicole Murray and cellist Katie Weissman of the Slee Sinfonietta

Mental Radio

Jonathan Golove