Artist Roster

Jonathan W. Whitney is a father, husband, son, artivist, jazz drummer, and composer. He uses his music to search for spaces to find understanding. Commissions include collaborating with the choreographer Ashley S.K. Davis to craft music for her dance works Divided We Fall (2019) and Ode (owed) to Black Women (2022), When The Two Shall Meet (2019) a large scale work written for the combined ensemble of the modern baroque ensemble Melomanie and the Whitney Project, as well as a separate work, Bedtime (2019), written for Melomanie, Cooch's Bridge: The Family (2023), and Cooch's Bridge: The African American Presence (2024). He has been a featured artist with the Wilmington Children’s Chorus, University of Delaware Orchestra, and Melomanie, and completed a composition residency at the University of Redlands in 2025.. Artists he has performed with include Donald Byrd, Kevin Kirkwood, Lili Añel, Jea Street, Jr., Mike Boone, John Swana, V. Shayne Fredrick, Maya Belardo, The Chantelles, Tony Smith, and The Bearded Ladies. Whitney is also the creator and musical director of A Celebration of Black Joy, which combines music and storytelling to celebrate the ever-present thread of Joy as Black America's greatest protest. In 2025, he completed his first feature-length film score, Death On The Brandywine, which will be released later this year. He was a 2020 Delaware Established Artist Fellowship recipient for jazz composition and is currently the artist-in-residence at the Episcopal Church of Saints Andrew and Matthew. Jonathan has his undergraduate degree in Music Education from the University of Delaware and a master's in music in Jazz Studies from the University of the Arts. His debut album, Life's Dimensions (2020), can be found on all platforms.