Jonathan Woody is a versatile and dynamic musician who maintains an active schedule as a performer and composer in New York and across North America. Cited by the Washington Post for singing “with resonance and clarity,” Woody is in demand as a bass-baritone soloist, appearing regularly with historically informed orchestras including Boston Early Music Festival, Apollo’s Fire, Pacific MusicWorks, Bach Collegium San Diego, Trinity Baroque Orchestra and New York Baroque Incorporated. In the 2021-2022 season, he served as Artistic Advisor for the Portland Baroque Orchestra, curating a program of 17th-century German music for voices and orchestra.
An accomplished chamber musician, Woody often performs as a member of the GRAMMY®-nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street, where he has earned praise from the New York Times for his “charismatic” and “riveting” solos. He has also recently performed in collaboration with Kaleidoscope Ensemble, Les Délices, Seraphic Fire, Byron Schenkman and Friends, and TENET Vocal Artists.
Woody’s compositional voice blends 17th and 18th-century inspiration with the minimalism and socially conscious subject matter of today. Since 2020, he has received commissions from Apollo’s Fire, the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Chanticleer, the Handel and Haydn Society, the Cathedral Choral Society of Washington, D.C., and the Five Boroughs Music Festival, among others.
As a sought-after new music proponent, Jonathan has participated in premiere performances of several leading composers’ works, including Ted Hearne’s The Source (2014), Ellen Reid’s p r i s m (2019 Pulitzer Prize-winner), Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves (NYC premiere, 2018), and Du Yun’s Angel’s Bone (2017 Pulitzer Prize-winner).
In recent seasons, Woody has appeared at the Staunton Music, Portland Bach, Carmel Bach, and Oregon Bach Festivals, the American Bach Soloists Academy, and at the Aldeburgh Festival at Snape Maltings. He has also been seen on the operatic stages of Opera Lafayette, American Opera Projects, and Beth Morrison Projects. Woody can be heard on the Choir of Trinity Wall Street’s GRAMMY®-nominated recording of Israel in Egypt, released in 2013 on the Musica Omnia label, as well as on ACRONYM’s Cantica Obsoleta (Olde Focus Recordings), Boston Early Music Festival’s St. Matthew Passion of J. Sebastiani (RadioBremen), New York Polyphony’s Roma Æterna (BIS Records), and the Choir of Trinity Wall Street’s Missa Gentis Humanae (Musica Omnia).
Jonathan is committed to racial equity in the field of the performing arts, and currently serves on Early Music America’s Task Force for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access. Presently living on traditional Lenape lands now known as Brooklyn, NY, he holds degrees from McGill University and the University of Maryland, College Park.
Handel’s Messiah
“For ‘The Trumpet Shall Sound,’ one of several airs given over to the expressive bass Jonathan Woody, the trumpeter John Thiessen ascended the pulpit, playing the extensive solo from memory.” – NY Times – Dec. 17, 2015
“The charismatic bass-baritone Jonathan Woody was riveting in a number of solos, his voice nimble and focused in the runs.” – NY Times – Dec. 8, 2013
Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo
“On the lower end of the voice range, Jonathan Woody as Charon and Mischa Bouvier as Pluto were especially noteworthy, their rich bass-baritones adding depth and resonance to their roles.” – Cleveland.com (Cleveland Plain-Dealer) – April 17, 2018
“Bass baritone Jonathan Woody was a fine Caronte (Charon) and baritone Mischa Bouvier a sturdy Plutone.” – San Francisco Classical Voice – April 23, 2018
Tallis’ Lamentations
“In the second, and longest, of the Tallis’ Lamentations, Jonathan Woody, one of the guest-artists, either got carried away with emotion, or was briefly brought to the fore by shifts in the larger texture; however it came about, his bold, apparently spontaneous coloring of key words having to do with exile, suffering, and guilt showed what might—and should—have been.” – ZealNYC.com – February 26, 2018
Schumann’s Dichterliebe
“Woody, a celebrated young American baritone, sang “Dichterliebe” (“Poet’s Love”), Schumann’s cycle of 15 songs on verses by Heinrich Heine, with great clarity – a German-speaker would not have needed to follow the printed texts – and wide expressive range, from hushed and lovelorn to stentorian to comic and folksy.” – Richmond Times-Dispatch – September 18, 2017
Handel’s Israel in Egypt
“A noteworthy exception was bass-baritone Jonathan Woody from Trinity Church Wall Street, who sang with resonance and authority.” – Washington Post – May 18, 2015