Jonathan Haas

Jonathan Haas is a soloist, orchestral timpanist, percussionist, conductor, teacher, clinician, and entrepreneur. He has garnered international acclaim for his performances of Philip Glass’s Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra, which he commissioned and has performed 70 times around the world with orchestras including the Chicago Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Sydney Symphony, San Francisco Ballet, BBC, Radio France, Istanbul Philharmonic, Prague Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic, Latvian National Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional of Mexico City, and many others.

Haas is the principal percussionist of the American Symphony, principal timpanist of the Aspen Chamber Orchestra, and percussionist of the American Composers Orchestra. He made his professional conducting debut for Amazon Prime/Jet Blue with the Mozart In The Jungle video initiative.

Haas is the president of Gemini Music Productions, the largest employer of musicians in New York. Gemini contracts musicians for Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Carnegie Hall’s New York Pops, the Emmy award-winning All-Star Orchestra, the Westchester Philharmonic, and the Little Orchestra Society.

A professor of music at N.Y.U., Haas is co-director of the university’s orchestral and percussions programs, director of instrumental performance, and conductor of the N.Y.U. contemporary music and percussion ensembles. He is a faculty/artist of the Juilliard Pre-College percussion studio, conductor of the Pre-College Percussion Ensemble, and an artist-faculty member at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he conducts the Aspen Percussion Ensemble.

Haas has performed and recorded with Emerson Lake and Palmer, Aerosmith, the Grammy Award-winning Zappa’s Universe, and many other innovative contemporary artists; he has also played for commercial and movie soundtracks. In his quest to showcase the timpani in unusual musical settings, Haas has become known for his legendary Hot Jazz Timpani performances, highlighting an unusual instrumental combination with his nine-piece Latin/Jazz ensemble, Johnny H. and the Prisoners of Swing.

Haas is a graduate of Juilliard where he studied with Saul Goodman and Buster Bailey. He also studied with Richard Holmes, Charles Owen, and Rich O’Donnell while a student at Washington University in St. Louis.