About
Jonah is a 2024-2025 Society of Composers and Lyricists Los Angeles mentee, and was a fellow in the 2024 Los Angeles Film Conducting Intensive, as well as a 2022 fellow in the Sundance Film Music Intensive. His first full-length feature film credit as composer, The Grand Strand, had a great run in four 2025 film festivals, including the Beverly Hills Film Festival, where it won the Best Feature jury prize. His piano trio Dry Ocean was premiered in the spring of 2023 by the Grammy-nominated Neave Trio, while his soundtrack for the NPR web documentary “Return of the American Bison” was nominated for a regional Emmy award in 2019.
He has played on numerous projects including as violist and arranger for Lindsay Marcus’ score to the 2021 Oscar-winning animated short If Anything Happens I Love You…, and major cinematic releases including Avatar: The Way of Water, Oppenheimer, and The Mandalorian. He has released two solo albums, Strong Sad and Storylander, featuring both his own music and world premiere recordings of new works by Nico Muhly, Paola Prestini, and many others. As a performing artist, Jonah had a solo concerto debut on viola at the age of 17, in a Lincoln Center performance conducted by Alan Gilbert. Since then, he has been featured as a soloist many times, including the Houston premiere of the Penderecki viola concerto and the Nebraska premiere of the John Harbison concerto. In 2006, he was awarded third prize at the Naumburg International Viola Competition (a contest that has only happened three times in the history of the organization).
Jonah was the violist of the recently-disbanded Chiara String Quartet for all of its 18 years. With the Chiara Quartet, he toured internationally, recorded seven albums (one of which received a Grammy nomination), premiered over 30 works—including major works by Gabriela Lena Frank, Jefferson Friedman, and Phillip Glass—and played in numerous major venues. He is sought after as a Hollywood session player, maintains an active performance schedule with several chamber music groups in the Los Angeles area, and regularly plays with major orchestras, including the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, where he serves as Associate Principal Viola, and the Long Beach Symphony, where he is Assistant Principal Viola. He teaches at the Colburn School, Cal State University Fullerton and the Greenwood Music Camp, and gives viola and composition masterclasses and residencies across the country. He resides in South Pasadena, CA.
