Jonathan Sheffer

Jonathan Sheffer is a Grammy-nominated composer and conductor whose diverse career in music spans the worlds of classical, opera, dance, and film and television. Born in New York City, Sheffer graduated from Harvard University, where his teachers included Leonard Bernstein, and later attended The Juilliard Extension School and the Aspen School of Music.

Sheffer’s range of works comprises television and feature film scores, works for orchestra, solo piano, concertos, musicals, and short operas. In addition to several scores for Hollywood films, including Encino Man, Pure Luck, A Shallow Grave and others, his most recent films include the documentaries Mann v. Ford (HBO) and the German/Israeli film, The Decent One, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. He has also served as conductor for many major films, including Alien 3, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, Batman Returns, Interview With The Vampire, Across The Universe, and many more.

His most recent orchestral commission was a work for children, The Conference of the Birds, which had its premiere in 2014 at the Cabrillo Festival, conducted by Marin Alsop. His opera, Blood on the Dining Room Floor, produced off-Broadway in 2000 and revived several times since, received the Richard Rodgers Production Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was the focus of a Guggenheim Works & Process series event. He has had fellowships at both Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony, and in 2003 he was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome.

Sheffer made his conducting debut with the San Diego Symphony in 1991. In 1995 he founded the Eos Orchestra in New York, receiving an ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award as a laboratory of new programming ideas. Eos toured nationally, performed at the White House and was the focus of a PBS special, and the recipient of a Grammy nomination. In 2001, he was invited by a group of musicians and arts donors from Cleveland to lead a new organization with a similar mission. The result was Red {an orchestra}, which performed similar programs for six seasons.

In addition to Eos and Red, he has conducted orchestras, opera, dance, and at various festivals, including the New York City Opera, The Spoleto Festival (Italy), and the Ravinia Festival. Sheffer has conducted the American Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera, the Mark Morris Dance Company at BAM, and in 1996, he led the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with the Martha Graham Dance Company at the Edinburgh Festival.

As part of his activities in arts and culture, philanthropy, and political action, Sheffer has been an active political fundraiser and advocate for the arts in government. He has served on the boards of Directors of VH1 Save The Music, the New York City Opera, and was the appointee of the New York City Council to the Board of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. He is currently a Councilmember of the New York State Council on the Arts.