Associate Professor of Music (Conducting)
Office: Catlett Music Center 127D
Phone: (405) 325-5338
Email: jshames@ou.edu
Dr. Jonathan Shames is director of orchestral studies and conducting and conducts the University of Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra. Since 2001, Shames has been music director and conductor of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra, a post that he continues to hold while at OU. From 2001 to 2004, he was associate director of orchestras and assistant professor of music at the University of Michigan School of Music, where he directed the University Philharmonia and the Contemporary Directions Ensemble. Shames also has been music director and conductor of the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras and the Olympia (Washington) Symphony Orchestra.
Shames' work as musical assistant to Sarah Caldwell of the Opera Company of Boston (at age 19) led to his first conducting opportunities, when Caldwell invited him to lead performances of Puccini's Girl of the Golden West and Mozart's Don Giovanni. Since that time, he has frequently been associated with the company, leading several tours and Boston performances. Shames has conducted the Louisiana Philharmonic, Richmond Symphony, Sewanee Festival and Pine Mountain Festival Symphony Orchestras.
As a pianist, since winning a finalist diploma in the 1982 Moscow International Tchaikovsky Competition, Shames has performed in France, Finland, South Korea and the former Soviet Union as well as across the U.S. Together with his wife, pianist Stephanie Leon Shames, he founded and served as artistic director of The Boston Players, a chamber music ensemble that performed from 1992 to 1997. He has recorded with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, toured with the Radio and Television Orchestra of Belgrade, and appeared as soloist with the Seoul Sinfonietta, the Chattanooga Symphony, the Seattle and Tacoma Symphony Orchestras and the Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Seattle, and Boston Pops Orchestras, among others.
Shames studied piano performance at the University of Michigan with Theodore Lettvin and Leon Fleisher. He was a conducting fellow of the Tanglewood Institute in 1994 and has worked with Seiji Ozawa, Bernard Haitink, Gustav Meier, Gerard Schwarz and Samuel Jones. He has taught at Cornell University, SUNY-Binghamton, Rutgers University, the Chautauqua Institute, Oberlin Conservatory and Interlochen.
BA (philosophy)—Yale University
MM (piano performance)—University of Michigan
DMA (piano performance)—University of Michigan
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