Jonathan Kulp (b. 1970) is
Assistant Professor
of music history and theory at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette
School of Music, where he holds the Margaret Chauvin Steen
Villemez/BORSF Endowed Professorship in Music. He began his
musical studies at age eight,
taking up the classical guitar in high school and going on to earn a
degree in guitar performance from the University of Tennessee at
Chattanooga. At UTC he studied guitar under Mario Abril and
composition under Peter Temko. Kulp also holds a Master's
degree
in music theory and a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Texas
at Austin. Dr. Kulp is a contributor to the New
Grove
Dictionary of Music
and to the German
music encyclopedia Die
Musik in
Geschichte und Gegenwart, and has published two articles on
Argentine composer Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000) in the Latin-American Music Review.
As a composer, Kulp was the youngest of eight winners
selected in G. Schirmer's 1995 Young Americans Art Song Competition,
and his winning song "Canción tonta" was subsequently
published
in The
Art Song Collection, the first volume of "G.
Schirmer's New
American Voices Series." Award-winning guitarist Steve
Kostelnik
has recorded Kulp's Danza Dominicana and Danza
Cubana,
music that Classical
Guitar Magazine
(England) describes
as
having “a mesmerizing montage of rhythmic
patterns.” In
1999 Dr. Kulp was commissioned by La Follia Austin
Baroque ensemble to write the chamber work rosetree follies,
based on a poem by e.e. cummings. In 2002 he wrote Five
Poems
of Emily Dickinson for voice and guitar on a commission from
tenor/guitarist Matthew
Hinsley, who also recorded four of Kulp's Canciones
para
niños on
his CD entitled Passions
Move (2002). Recent
compositions include Montuno and Fugue for two
pianos, written
in 2003 for
the Nyaho-García Duo, Merengue
for Orchestra (2004), and Tarantella
for solo piano (2005), written for Alexandre
Dossin.
Kulp is a former competitive skateboarder and now spends much of his
leisure time playing disc golf and watching
sports of all kinds.
