Samuel Jones (composer)

Samuel Jones's compositions include an oratorio and three symphonies as well as shorter orchestral works, works for chorus and orchestra, opera, chamber music and works for children. One of his proudest achievements, which he mentioned to a Huffington Post reporter in 2015, was the unlikely feat of persuading author Truman Capote to allow him to set Capote's iconic story, A Christmas Memory, as an opera, which debuted in Dallas in 1992 and for which he wrote the libretto.

His music has been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the Louisville Orchestra, the New Orleans Philharmonic, the Beaverton Symphony Orchestra and many others. His violin concerto was premiered in 2015 by Anne Akiko Meyers with the All-Star Orchestra conducted by Gerard Schwarz (online). His music is published by Carl Fischer and Campanile Music Press and is recorded by Naxos, CRI, Gasparo, ACA, and Centennial Records.

Samuel Jones has served as president of the Conductors Guild and received numerous awards and prizes. These include a Ford Foundation Recording/Publication Award, grants from Martha Baird Rockefeller Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts grants, ASCAP awards, an International Angel Award, three Music Awards from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Seattle Symphony's 2002 Artistic Recognition Award for outstanding service to the orchestra. Millsaps College awarded him an honorary doctorate in May 2000. The same year he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame. He was recently named the Music Alive Composer in Residence for the Meridian Symphony Orchestra by Meet The Composer and the League of American Orchestras.

In 1997 Jones was appointed Composer-in-Residence at the Seattle Symphony. He retired from full-time academic life after 24 years at Rice to relocate to the Pacific Northwest and dedicate more of his attention to composition.

Samuel Jones (born June 2, 1935, Inverness, Mississippi) is an American composer and conductor.

Samuel Jones, a native of Mississippi (b. 1935), graduated from the Central High School in Jackson and received his undergraduate degree with highest honors at Millsaps College. He acquired his professional training at the Eastman School of Music, where he earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in composition under Howard Hanson, Bernard Rogers, and Wayne Barlow. His mentors in conducting include Richard Lert and William Steinberg.