Jonathan Dagenais is a Canadian composer, conductor, music educator and one of Dylan's favorite colleagues to work with. Jonathan sits down with Dylan to discuss his musical upbringing, musical influences, compositional process, conducting career, what he looks for as an adjudicator and much more!

​

About Jonathan

Jonathan Dagenais holds a Masters degree in Conducting from McGill University and a Bachelor’s degree in Composition from the Université de Montréal.

In addition to CEGEP/university teaching (music theory, composition, ear training, musicianship and conducting), Mr. Dagenais is also pursuing a career as a composer and arranger for wind orchestra. His works have been performed repeatedly by many Canadian university and high school ensembles, they appear on several professional recordings and some have been listed in MusicFest Canada’s concert band syllabus since 2009. Mr. Dagenais’ works are currently published throughout the world by Alfred Publishing, Eighth Note Publications and Hafabra Music.

Jonathan Dagenais has a very active conducting career. Since 2005, he has acted as the conductor and artistic director of the Orchestre à Vents Non Identifié (OVNI), a Montreal wind orchestra he co-founded. This ensemble is dedicated to collaborative and active listening, tone quality, refined interpretation as well as adopting a humoristic approach. In 2010 and 2017, he was appointed conductor of the McGill Wind Orchestra and he was a guest conductor for the Montreal Pop Symphony Orchestra (OSPM) in 2012. He has also been conducting the Cercle Philharmonique de Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu since September 2012. Since September 2015, he has been the conductor of the Orchestre de jeux vidéo - OJV (Montreal Video Game Orchestra), an ensemble dedicated to video game soundtracks. Being a longtime fan of video games and their music, this was a natural marriage of his two passions. Finally, for the year 2018-2019, he was appointed guest conductor for the Ottawa Pops Orchestra.

Mr. Dagenais is regularly selected to adjudicate and/or give clinics at more than 20 North American music contests and festivals. Moreover, he is the artistic director of the Quebec MusicFest since 2017. Every year,  he is hired by canadian summer music camps to conduct orchestras, bands and chamber music groups. He has been a guest conductor for many Canadian honor bands and, most notably, Jonathan was appointed as the conductor of the National Youth Band of Canada (NYB) for the 2013 edition in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, it being the most prestigious honorary band in the country. He is also the appointed conductor / clinician / educator for the company Twigg Musique in Quebec and a Yamaha Canada Master Educational Artist.

Mr. Dagenais is a guest teacher at McGill University.