As an assistant professor of music and director of Georgetown University Orchestra and Wind Ensemble,
Rufus Jones has his hands full -- with more than just a baton.
In addition to directing the groups, he teaches several classes a week and is preparing for his emergence as a published author later this year. He’s participated in several conducting workshops sponsored by the American Symphony Orchestra League and studied with internationally recognized conductors such as Louis Lane and Gustav Meier. And in March 2007, Jones conducted the international premiere of
On the Day You Were Born by Steven Heitzig in Italy at the Teatro Maggio Musicale.
He's also a deacon of his church, directs a Washington, D.C., orchestra and does a lot of volunteer work.
"When you have a passion for something it doesn't seem like it's a lot to do and that you're busy, but that you're fulfilling your dreams," Jones explains. "And for me as a conductor to have that opportunity to work in both academia, especially at an institution like Georgetown University, and to be able to perform not only on campus but outside of campus, is definitely a privilege."
Jones began his musical career playing the piano in second grade, explored the viola in fourth grade and finally tried the baritone horn in fifth grade.
"I actually didn't choose the baritone horn, it kind of chose me," Jones says of the instrument he loves most. He wanted to be "the cool guy" and play the saxophone or trumpet, but those instruments were not available, and his family couldn't afford to rent them.
"What was available was this old, rusty, big, ugly, dented instrument that they called the baritone horn," Jones recalls. "I didn't want to have anything to do with it. But I wanted the opportunity to play in band, so I gave it a try. It was actually a couple of years later that I actually started to like the instrument."
He later came to love it.
"It produces an incredible mellow sound," he says. "It is what you call a low brass instrument, but it doesn't fit the mode of what people consider a low brass, which is a sort of a supporting instrument to the band. It can provide beautiful, mellow melodies like no other instrument. I love the sound that it produces and I love both worlds that it sits in, this world of accompaniment for the band and this world of virtuosity."
It was his skill as a horn player that led to Jones being selected to the McDonald's All-American High School Marching Band. An honors student at Justin F. Kimball High School in Dallas, he performed with the group of 104 students, selected from a pool of 12,000, and met young musicians who shared his interests.
"That was an incredible experience," Jones says. "It was absolutely life-changing to be able to sit and talk with your peers and know that they had the same kind of dreams that I had."
He went on to obtain a degree in music from the University of Texas at Austin, then studied at the State University of New York, Binghamton, as a Clifford D. Clarke Graduate Fellow. He received his master’s in instrumental conducting from SUNY in 1998. and his doctorate in orchestral conducting from Texas Tech University in 2004.
In his fourth year as Hoya community member, Jones rehearses with the Georgetown groups for four hours twice a week. He also teaches Elements of Music, in which students both study concepts and demonstrate them through voice.
The orchestra performed its annual concert in Gaston Hall this past February over Senior Parents’ Weekend, showcasing some of Broadway’s greatest hits from shows such as
The Producers and
42nd Street. Up next is the
Spring 2008 Concert on April 27 featuring 25 to 30 students performing the works of Haydn and Mendelssohn.
Anthony DelDonna, assistant professor of musicology, calls Jones "one of the most musical conductors I’ve known."
"He has very precise motions," DelDonna explains. "You watch his hands, and it looks like the music is emanating from his hands. There's a very high level of communication going on between the students and Rufus. He’s truly up there leading them."
Jones is looking forward to the publication of
The Collected Folk Suites of William Grant Still, to be released later this year by William Grant Still Music. The collection features 11 short chamber works from 1962 to 1968 that were written for small string quartets or small piano and woodwind ensembles. William Grant Still (1895-1978) was the first African-American composer to conduct a major American symphony orchestra and to have his own symphony performed by a leading orchestra.
"He produced music that took primarily African-American idiom folk songs, like jazz and blues, and incorporated that into the European classical tradition," Jones explains.
Most of the collection has never been performed. It had to be verified and then put into a modern notation through computer software. DelDonna says the work is "really important."
"He's sort of actively contributing to the rediscovery of some seminal figures in American music," DelDonna explains. "He's doing this incredible research, and he's just very modest."
Jones' next project, for which he’ll take a sabbatical in the fall, is a biography of the African-American conductor Dean Dixon (1915-1976), whom Europe lauded and America ignored. The professor says he never considered writing a book until he came to Georgetown and received encouragement from his department.
"This is an important research institution," Jones says, "and there are expectations in the department that expand the traditional role of performance faculty. There's definitely been nurturing, there's definitely been encouragement to expand. It’s very beneficial to my future."
Outside of Georgetown, Jones directs the Washington Sinfonietta Orchestra, Washington area professional group of 45 musicians. The group performs about five concerts a year. Jones also enjoys working with youth clinics, including a stint as guest conductor for Prince George’s County Senior Orchestra at the Kennedy Center this past fall. He flew up his mother, Helen Bonner, to the concert and honored her for sacrificing throughout his childhood to help him pursue his dream. Jones’ personal life will take on a new chapter when he marries Felicia Ford on May 24.
He serves as deacon at the Greater Mount Cavalry Holy Church in D.C., volunteers with the church’s senior ministry, assisting senior citizens with running errands, doctor visits and providing rides to Sunday services.
"To me, it's all about service," Jones says. "As a performer, as an educator, and everything else I do. I love the service, to give back -- it's key to being a leader of any type."
