Jonathan Leigh Billingham
Composer
Jonathan Billingham is a composer of orchestral, choral and chamber music and a singer-songwriter of piano and vocal ballads. He is also the Dean of Residents at New College, UNSW Sydney (2019-current).
Born in 1986, Billingham grew up a few hours drive north of Sydney, in the Mid-North Coast town of Taree. He began his musical journey on violin at the age of four, with piano and voice to follow.
Billingham’s style fuses modern and traditional musical idioms to provide inspiration and connection with a 21st century audience. His compositions are laced with lyrical melodies, lush harmonies, and rhythmic fluidity.
Many projects by Tallowdale Music reflect the composer’s love of rural Australia. Billingham is gifted in building connections within communities and is passionate about promoting respect for regional and rural Australia through music.
In 2016, Billingham was appointed as the Manning River Festival Ambassador. He was commissioned to write a landmark piece that would musically depict the beauty of the Manning Valley – an Australian response to the symphonic poem The Moldau by Czech composer Bedřich Smetna. This piece, From Hidden Valleys to the Open Sea, became the title work on his first album.
In 2019, Tallowdale Music produced a short nature film From Hidden Valleys in collaboration with FilmWorks Media, conveying the sights and sounds of the majestic Manning Region. With Billingham’s work as the soundscape, the viewer experiences a bird’s-eye view, journeying over Barrington Tops and Lansdowne Escarpment, through rugged gullies, past forests, and flood plains all the way to the open sea.
Notable works by Jonathan Billingham include Servitude (for tenor, soprano, orchestra and choir), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (chamber orchestra) and The Passing Seasons (wind quintet) and Her Majesty’s Horses (piano trio). There is a Time (SSAATTBB choir) was performed on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of New College, UNSW in 2019. A Promise (double choir and piano), was performed in 2013 at the UNSW Festival of Carols. Good News (choir and guitar) was commissioned for a Christmas program in 2010.
A number of Sydney school string ensembles have commissioned Billingham to compose exciting new intermediate and advanced level works such as Up and Down (2019), Whispers from the Ancient Garden (2019), and Heatwave (2017).
Billingham has written original wedding music, including recorded works Petrus Aemeliam Deamat (piano), Lhuvirion’s Theme (orchestral), and Illawarra Panorama (piano trio). He also arranges well-known hymns, such as Great is Thy Faithfulness (orchestra and choir) which have been used at special occasions.
Billingham studied a Bachelor of Music at The University of New South Wales (2006-09) where he majored in Violin and Composition. Billingham was mentored in composition and orchestration under eminent Australian composer, Dr John Peterson, who was also a joint-supervisor with Dr Christine Logan for Billingham's honours thesis, Contrast and Cohesion in Symphony No.5 Dark Side. This thesis explored the intricate transitions in the music of Melbourne composer, Brenton Broadstock. Billingham graduated from UNSW with 1st Class Honours.
Jonathan is married to Linda and they have three children. Linda Billingham is a Music teacher, French horn player, conductor, arranger and early-childhood educator. Together they serve in music and children’s ministry at St Johns Anglican Church, Maroubra.