About Jonathan Merrill
Background
Jonathan grew up in a musical home and is the second of three generations of musicians. His father was a violinist, conductor, and educator who, among other things, started the Blossom Festival School as a partnership with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. He ultimately became the Dean of the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His mother was a pianist, organist, and educator who became the Director of the Music Department at Rockhurst College. Both of his children are professional orchestral and studio musicians, as well.
Growing up, he was always hanging out in the orchestra rehearsals or concerts his father was conducting it was not uncommon to come home from school to find music legends in his living room. People like Van Cliburn, Lorin Maazel, Jaime Laredo. Clark Terry, Artur Rubinstein, Josef Gingold, Pierre Boulez, Virgil Thomson, Nicolas Slonimsky, Marian Anderson, Count Basie, Lukas Foss, James Galway, Mary Lou Williams, Marian McPartland, Jerry Goldsmith, and even Aaron Copland.
Conductor
His first time in front of a large orchestra was at age 20, conducting Respighi’s epic “Feste Romane.” Although he mostly directs studio ensembles in places like Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., Seattle, Jacksonville, Portland and Melbourne, Australia, he has conducted numerous live concerts in Los Angeles, Dallas, San Francisco, Kansas City, Tucson, and Palm Desert. You’ve seen him conduct orchestras with Guns N’ Roses in the MTV Video of the ‘90s, “November Rain” (2 billion views and counting!) and on the MTV Awards with Elton John. As a student, after two performances at the Shrine Auditorium conducting his own musical theater arrangements for USC’s “Songfest,” he attracted the attention of Nelson Riddle and it all led to music directorships with Eartha Kitt, Sally Champlin, and Barbi Benton. He has appeared as a conductor (actually conducting!) on the Super Bowl commercial, NFL “Rally,” the Infiniti Q50 “Avengers Infinity War,” Supercuts “Timpanist” commercials, and (as an aside) the recording engineer in the ridiculously ubiquitous “Record Company” spot for Indeed. He is currently the Music Director, Music Producer, and Orchestrator for the Broadway-bound musical, “Tesla.”
Producer
In addition to being frequently hired to conduct recording sessions for other composers, he has been the producer/arranger for many indie artists in the US, UK, and Australia—for their recordings and TV appearances on shows including The X-Factor.
Composer
As a composer and orchestrator Jonathan has collaborated with advertising agencies, video game companies, film studios, TV and film producers, Fortune 500 companies, and even a US Presidential candidate. His work encompasses over 300 commercials (including Mercedes, Paramount Pictures, Ford, Budweiser, McDonalds, and Disney), Radio ID music packages for stations in the US, Russia, Japan, and Turkey, his music has appeared in hundreds of episodes of television, as well as New Media, video games, and he has licensed songs and music extensively in TV and film.
Educator
Every Spring, Merrill teaches Orchestral Conducting in the UCLA Extension Film-Scoring program and recently acted as the choral conducting coach for the USC Screen-Scoring Masters program. He has taught classes in Choral Composition for Film and TV at UCLA, Music Business and The Use of Computers in Music at California Polytechnic University, and has been a frequent guest lecturer at several Los Angeles area universities. He has given seminars in Los Angeles for the Society of Composers and Lyricists, the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, and at Collarts University in Melbourne, Australia.
Performer
His career encompasses performances at venues such as the Hollywood Bowl, Disney Hall, Shrine Auditorium, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Blossom Music Center, and the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. He has sung with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, too-many-to-count live performances of the “Nightmare Before Christmas” with Danny Elfman and Oingo Boingo, “Star Wars in Concert,” and a gazillion performances of “The Music of Danny Elfman from the Films of Tim Burton” at the Nokia, Microsoft, and Honda Theaters.
Additional work includes singing on numerous film soundtracks, including “Star Wars: Rogue One,” “War on the Planet of the Apes,” and the most recent version of “The Grinch.”
Synthesist
Jonathan’s father was also an early Moog modular synthesist—no doubt sparking his interest in synthesis. As a child, he accompanied his dad to the Moog factory in Trumansburg, NY to confer with Bob Moog. This interest led to, among other things, his tenure as a sound designer at Spectrasonics—designing sounds for Omnisphere, Keyscape, and Trilian.
Awards, etc.
His awards include a Clio, a London International Advertising Award, the Jerry Fielding Scholarship, and an ASCAP Film-Scoring Workshop Fellowship, among others. He earned a Masters degree in Composition from USC with Honors along with a Merit Scholarship. He serves as a regular judge for the Emmys and the College Television Awards for the Television Academy and is actively involved in the Recording Academy, BMI, SAG-AFTRA, and the AFM.
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Contact
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