Background
PhD, Harvard University
Dean since 2023. Kay Davis Professor of Music.
Originally from Flint, MI, 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, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, New World, Philadelphia, Richmond, and San Antonio Symphony Orchestras; Los Angeles Philharmonic, Florida Philharmonic, Chicago Youth Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra, Abeo Quartet, Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, Hotel Elefant, and der/gelbe/klang; 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 can be heard on recordings by the Cincinnati Symphony, University of Texas Trombone Choir, Radius Ensemble, Transient Canvas, as well as soloist Sarah Bob (piano) and Christopher Chaffee (flute).
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 presently dean of the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, where he is also the Kay Davis Professor of Music. He has previously served as the Jack G. Buncher Head of the School of Music at Carnegie Mellon University; chair of Composition, Contemporary Music, and Core Studies at Boston Conservatory at Berklee; and 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.