Background
PhD, Harvard University
Dean since 2023. Kay Davis Professor of Music.
The music of composer Jonathan Bailey Holland (b. 1974) has been performed and commissioned by numerous organizations, both nationally and internationally, including the Atlanta, Baltimore, BBC, Cincinnati, Charlotte, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, New World, Richmond, and San Antonio symphony orchestras; the Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Florida Philharmonic, Chicago Youth Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra, Abeo Quartet, Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, Hotel Elefant, der/gelbe/klang, and Roomful of Teeth; and soloists Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Sarah Bob, and Demarre McGill, among many others.
Holland served as composer-in-residence with the Cincinnati Symphony and has held similar roles with the Detroit Symphony, South Bend Symphony Orchestras, Plymouth Music Series of Minnesota, Ritz Chamber Players, and the Radius Ensemble. His music has been recorded by the Cincinnati Symphony, the University of Texas Trombone Choir, Transient Canvas, trumpeter Jack Sutte, flutist Christopher Chaffee, pianist Sarah Bob, and more.
Holland has received awards and honors from the Guggenheim Foundation, The Boston Foundation, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, American Academy of Arts and Letters, American Music Center, ASCAP, the Presser Foundation, and others.
He studied composition with Ned Rorem at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he earned a Bachelor of Music degree. He went on to receive a PhD in Music from Harvard University, where his primary teachers were Bernard Rands and Mario Davidovsky. Other teachers have included Andrew Imbrie, Yehudi Wyner, Robert Saxton, and Robert Sirota.
Holland is dean of the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, where he is also the Kay Davis Professor of Music. He previously served as the Jack G. Buncher Head of the School of Music at Carnegie Mellon University and chair of Composition, Contemporary Music, and Core Studies at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. He was a founding faculty member in the low-residency MFA program in music composition at Vermont College of Fine Arts, where he also served as faculty chair from 2016 until 2019. In addition, he has served on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music.