About Me

 Composer Jonathan Newmark, born New York City in 1953, pianist,  violist, and conductor, received his MM degree in composition from the  University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in 2015.  His  teachers have included Joel Hoffman, Douglas Knehans, and Michael Fiday,  at CCM, as well as Jonathan Kolm, Gloria Wilson Swisher, and James  McVoy.  He played viola in the Tacoma (WA) Symphony for four seasons,  and guest conducted the Independence Sinfonia of Philadelphia.  He has  participated at the Chamber Music Conference at Bennington, Vermont  since 1981 and worked there with composers including Carman Moore,  Eleanor Armer, Eleanor Cory, Allen Shawn, Martin Bresnick, Daniel Strong  Godfrey, Kurt Rohde, Paul Moravec, Chen Yi, Pierre Jalbert, Marc  Mellits, Donald Crockett, Lisa Bielawa, Scott Wheeler, Jesse Jones, and Ted Hearne.  He has been awarded artist residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in 2021, 2023, and 2024.  

His 1997 String Trio  co-won the Southeastern Composers Competition at Old Dominion  University in 2000.   Works of his premiered at the Connecticut  Summerfest, Hartford, 2017, Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, New  York, 2016, Charlotte New Music Festival, North Carolina, 2015 Walden School Creative Musicians’ Retreat, Dublin, New Hampshire, 2014, nief-norf summer festival, Knoxville, Tennessee, 2018, artsonglab, Vancouver, British Columbia, 2019, the International Trombone Festival, Muncie, Indiana, 2019,  June in Buffalo, 2020, and the nief-norf composer/performer summit in 2021.   Trinity Chamber Orchestra of Washington, DC premiered his orchestral  overture in 2015.   His trio Secret Atop the Bluff  for  bass clarinet, violin, and piano won the Boston New Music Festival  score call in 2017.   

A CD of four of his chamber works was released in  2009 on the Music Unlimited label.  His string quartet Tom Dooley Without the Fringe On Top (2015) appears on a CD released on the Navona label in 2019 by the Altius Quartet; his 2014 Piano Sonata appears on a 2019 CD by British pianist Martin Jones.  His music is published by TrevCo-Varner and by WaveFront Music, and has been performed by The Westerlies (New York), Sybarite5 (New York), Juventas Ensemble (Boston), Yarn/Wire (New York), Wet Ink Ensemble (New York), Great Noise Ensemble (Washington), Beo Quartet (Pittsburgh), Georgetown Quintet (Washington), West Shore Piano Trio (Baltimore), TEMPO = The Epicenter Music Performance Organization (Los Angeles), Texas New Music Ensemble (Houston), Opera Contempo (Salt Lake City), and the string orchestra of Lyndon B. Johnson Middle School (Albuquerque).

A  1974 graduate of Harvard College, he earned his MD degree from Columbia  University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1978.  He is a  board-certified neurologist, full professor of neurology at the  Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, clinical assistant professor of neurology at George Washington University, retired Colonel in  the US Army Medical Corps, staff neurologist at the Washington DC VA  Medical Center, former Chemical Casualty Care Consultant to the Army  Surgeon General (2002-2012), presently consultant to the  National Institutes of Health, and one of the nation’s leading authorities on medical response  to chemical warfare and terrorism.  In 2017 he was appointed to a four-year term on the Secure and Resilient Commonwealth Panel in the office of the Governor of Virginia; he was reappointed to a second four-year term in 2021.  He lives in the Virginia suburbs of  Washington, DC.