JONATHAN MITCHELL’Äôs work in radio began in 1994 at Mills College when he produced his Master's thesis’Äîa 45-minute audio drama, which combined actors, interviews, and found sound with original music and rich sound design. Since then he's spent his career refining his approach to storytelling, looking for new ways of using musical ideas in narratives, exploring the potential of the recording studio, and expanding the vocabulary of storytelling on the radio.
For over 12 years, Jonathan has worked for a variety of nationally syndicated public radio programs and has been a part of creating three of them: Beyond Computers, where he served as Creative Director and composed the show's theme music; Loose Leaf Book Company, where he served as Senior Producer; and PRI's Fair Game, where he served as Producer and composed music for the show. He has also held temporary positions on a number of programs, including The Next Big Thing and Studio 360, where he was a member of the team that produced the Peabody Award-winning episode about Melville's Moby-Dick. His most recent staff position was as a producer for WNYC's Radiolab. Jonathan has contributed a wide range of pieces’Äîdocumentaries, fictional stories, non-narrated sound collages, and music’Äîto all of the shows mentioned above, as well as to Weekend America, Marketplace, Living on Earth, and All Things Considered. In 2004, he won a Golden Reel Award for ’ÄúShades of Gray,’Äù an hour-long documentary about abortion. Jonathan composed the music and sound design for two full episodes of Nova on PBS (’ÄúAstrospies’Äù and ’ÄúThe Spy Factory’Äù), and also created parodies of TV commercials heard in the computer games The Sims and The Sims 2. Other past clients have included WNYC, KQED, PRI, Chicago Matters, Hearing Voices, Time Magazine, Antenna Audio, Maxis/Electronic Arts, Nextbook.org, Candide Media, and Sirius Satellite Radio.
Jonathan studied music composition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Mills College. He lives in New York City.
interviews
(my hometown paper)