Jonathan Bagg

Jonathan Bagg is Professor of the Practice at Duke University, and violist of the Ciompi String Quartet. His career with the Ciompi includes hundreds of concerts across the U.S. and around the world, as well as many recordings. Currently co-Artistic Director of Electric Earth Concerts in New Hampshire, which he founded in 2012, Bagg also directed the Monadnock Music festival from 2007-2011. He directs the chamber music program and teaches viola at Duke, where he has been Chair in the Music Department and Director of Undergraduate Studies. Bagg also performs as principal violist with CityMusic: Cleveland Chamber Orchestra.

Solo recitals have brought him to many locations along the East Coast, including the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC and Boston’s Jordan Hall. Festival appearances include the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Eastern Music Festival, the Portland Chamber Music Festival, the Highlands, NC, Mohawk Trail, and Castle Hill festivals.

Bagg’s 2014 CD on Albany records, tiled “Elation” brings together several works he commissioned, including a sonata and trio by Duke colleague Stephen Jaffe and a trio by Scott Lindroth, also on the Duke faculty. His other solo CDs are on Centaur and contain music for viola and piano by Robert and Clara Schumann, and by the Viennese composer Robert Fuchs (1847-1927). Contemporary solo works by Arthur Levering, Malcolm Peyton, Robert Ward, and Donald Wheelock are on Bridge, Albany, Centaur and Gasparo Records. Collaborations include many notable musicians, including pianists Menahem Pressler and Bella Davidovich, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon, and the Tokyo and Borromeo Quartets.

Before coming to Duke he performed with many of New Enlgand’s leading musical organizations, appearing often with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as associate principal of the Handel and Haydn Society, and as principal viola of the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra. He graduated with honors from both Yale University (BA) and the New England Conservatory (MM), where he studied with Steven Ansell and Walter Trampler.

Bio Nov 2018