Jonathan Hulting-Cohen & Jennifer R. Ellis
Biography Jonathan Hulting-Cohen & Jennifer R. Ellis
Jonathan Hulting-Cohen
Classical saxophonist Jonathan Hulting-Cohen’s performances as soloist and chamber musician have been considered “impressive” with “exceptional facility” (Schenectady Daily Gazette), and “fun to watch” (Oregon Arts Watch). From a musical family in Philadelphia, his early training was as a concert violinist, Irish fiddler, and classical singer. He picked up the saxophone at age 12, continuing his classical training while studying the foundations of jazz. Early performances included a debut at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts at age 17 performing Alexandre Glazounov’s Concerto in Eb. At 21 he performed Luciano Berio’s Chemins IV and Roger Boutry’s Divertimento with the Philadelphia Classical Symphony.
Jonathan’s concerto engagements include standard repertoire and world premieres. In addition to the Philadelphia Classical Symphony, he has performed with the Adrian Symphony Orchestra (MI) and Sequoia Symphony Orchestra (CA), as well as the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Band, and Concert Choir. Among those concerti have been RUSH, the 2018 Grammy-winning work by Kenneth Fuchs, John Williams’ classical-jazz crossover concerto, Escapades, and others by Biedenbender, Lennon, Colgrass, Hartley, and Chatman. In 2017 he premiered Guggenheim-winning composer Felipe Salles’ double concerto, Sagrada Familia, with Dutch saxophone virtuoso, Arno Bornkamp. His world premiere recording of Stacy Garrop’s Quicksilver with the UMass Amherst Wind Ensemble will be released in 2020.
As a soloist, Jonathan placed in the 2018 Classics Alive Competition, was twice a finalist in the Astral Artists Competition, and was a semi-finalist in the North American Saxophone Alliance Solo Competition. In recitals, he performs traditional and contemporary repertoire. In 2017, he toured Echoes of American Jazz, a program featuring classical works by jazz composers David Liebman, David Amram, Stephen Rush, and Jackson Berkey, which he presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He built upon this repertoire through six commissions that connect classical aesthetics with jazz and folk in his 2018 tour. Notable among this repertoire are seven-time Downbeat Magazine International Critics’ Poll Alto Saxophonist of the Year, Rudresh Mahanthappa’s jazz-influenced duet, I Choose You, and Annika Socolofsky’s Norwegian folk-influenced Rise for alto saxophone and bowed piano. These will be released on innova recordings in March of 2021.
Jonathan also enjoys a vibrant chamber music profile. He has performed at Chamber Music Northwest and at Carnegie Hall in the 21st Century Ensemble. He is co-founder of The Moanin’ Frogs, an internationally recognized saxophone sextet performing entertaining arrangements of masterpieces and new commissions from a wide range of styles. They earned notoriety as winners of the Senior Winds Division at the 2018 M-Prize Competition. The Admiral Launch Duo, co-founded by Jonathan and harpist Jennifer Ellis, have commissioned and premiered 10 new works for harp and saxophone nationwide, and released their debut album, Launch, on Albany Records in 2018.
Jonathan trained at the University of Michigan under Donald Sinta. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Saxophone at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, co-director of the New England Saxophone Festival & Competition, and is a member of the NASA Committee on the Status of Women. He is a Conn-Selmer, Silverstein, and D’Addario Woodwinds Artist.
Jennifer R. Ellis
(D.M.A. University of Michigan, M.M. Cleveland Institute of Music, B.M. Oberlin) is a dynamic contemporary performer who thoroughly enjoys defying traditional expectations about harp playing. It is in that spirit that she became the first harpist ever named a One Beat fellow–a cultural diplomacy program the U.S. State Department in conjunction with Found Sound Nation. She was also the first harpist to be accepted to Bang on a Can’s Summer Festival, Splice Institute for Electroacoustic Music, and the Fresh Inc. Festival. In addition to performing her own harp compositions, Dr. Ellis has worked with composers to perform over eighty premieres. A 2014 Atlantic Music Festival Future Music Lab fellow, she was a founding member of the Admiral Launch Duo, OINC, and Seen/Heard Trio and was selected to accompany Stevie Wonder at the opening of Oberlin’s new jazz building.
Dr. Ellis is a recipient of a 2014 Engaged Pedagogy Initiative Fellowship, a 2013 Rackham Centennial Fellowship and the 2012 Alice Chalifoux Prize in Harp. In addition to two artist residencies at Wildacres and performances at the National Orchestra Institute, Texas Music Festival, Spark Festival, and Britten Pears Emerging Composers Residency, Dr. Ellis has toured the U.S. and Canada as a concert soloist with the American Wind Symphony Orchestra. She holds awards in the Coeur d’Alene Young Artists, Ladies Musical Club of Seattle, Inez Stafford, and California State American String Teachers Association competitions and has received both AT&T Foundation and Conservatory Dean’s scholarships.
Dr. Ellis is committed to working directly with composers. In addition to eighty premieres, she has run workshops on composing for the harp and harp and electronics at the Atlantic Music Festival, Fresh Inc. Festival, Bang on a Can Summer Festival, Bowling Green State University, Cleveland State University, University of Hartford, Miami University, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, University of North Carolina at Greensboro and University of Michigan. She also founded the freshly-launched Ask a Harpist Project, a video blog dedicated to answering composer submitted questions about the harp. Her new music harp and saxophone ensemble, The Admiral Launch Duo, emphasizes commissioning up-and-coming composers and interarts collaboration. Last season, they returned to Avaloch for a third residency and performed at Michigan State University, Kalamazoo Piano Company, SCCC Chamber Music Series, UMass Amherst, The Hartt School, North American Saxophone Alliance Conference at Texas Tech University, Harps Etc., and San Francisco’s Center for New Music. She also plays with the new music ensembles All Sanctuary and Seen/Heard Trio, featured at Omaha Under the Radar and recent residents at UNC Greensboro.
Dr. Ellis has focused on expanding the vocabulary of the harp. Her primary doctoral research traces the social networks of composers and explores how extended techniques emerge from interlocking artistic communities. Her recent work with the IRCAM’s motion sensor technology at the Atlantic Festival resulted in the premiere of Weav-Weav-Weaving for Harp and Interactive Electronics. This work was featured on the Carnegie Hall Music Exchange online community, Composers Circle, the Splice Institute, the Five College New Music Festival, Miami University, and on the inaugural Listening to Ladies concert at the Kalamazoo Piano Company.
Deeply passionate about community engagement, Dr. Ellis earned her Girl Scout Gold Award running a music program for students in inner-city Richmond, CA, a project that led the San Francisco Bay Council to nominate her as a Young Woman of Distinction for 2006. This experience spurred her to participate in Oberlin’s social entrepreneurship program and complete graduate coursework at the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Management. She has performed in settings ranging from Ronald McDonald houses to psychiatric wards to arts-based literacy projects for at-risk youth. Beyond her own community engagement work, she has focused on learning best practices for training undergraduate music students in community engagement in her Engaged Pedagogy Initiative Fellowship at the University of Michigan. And, she has worked to support other musicians in their community engagement efforts by running training workshops on building meaningful community partnerships, a workshop that first debuted at Harps Etc. in California.
Dr. Ellis is dedicated to innovative music pedagogy and has taught a combination of harp, eurhythmics and music theory privately as well as at institutions including Harps Etc., Avon School of Music, Oberlin Secondary Instrument Program, Cleveland School for the Arts, and Young Artist’s Harp Seminar. She has given masterclasses at Interlochen and Michigan State University and she was the 2013 guest instructor for the University of Michigan MPULSE Harp Institute. She is a flexible clinician and gave over a dozen university workshops or guest lectures in the 2015-2016 season. She founded a eurhythmics program for University of Michigan music students that has expanded to include five levels of study. She specializes in inclusive teaching practices and her commitment to teaching has led her to help train other teachers through teaching eurhythmics pedagogy and leading practice teaching facilitations and training workshops for University of Michigan Graduate Student Instructors. She has helped to train music educators on using tools from eurhythmics in classroom teaching through workshops for NafME at UMass Amherst and University of Michigan. She served as the harp department assistant at both Oberlin and CIM and has published in The American Harp Journal and Harp Column Magazine. Dr. Ellis studied harp with Yolanda Kondonassis, Jessica Siegel, and Alice Giles and earned her D.M.A. in Harp Performance with a Certificate of Musicology and CRLT Graduate Teacher Certificate with Joan Holland and Charles Garrett at the University of Michigan. She is a 2017-2018 UC Davis artist-in-residence and a guest artist for the 40th Anniversary Festival of New American Music. She teaches at Harps Etc. and is on the preparatory and adult extension faculties at San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
