Jonathan Elias
Co-Creator / Composer / Producer

"The world we live in is both beautiful and cruel; nothing stands in the way of our future but the way the nuclear vision looms. I always felt Oppenheimer was a man in the middle of two worlds. One being science, but also humanity. As I discovered, his soul was tormented by what he had created; and he lived a life in which he was both a hero and anti-hero. I hope we can all learn that the legacy he left behind was both dark and enlightened. I pray we choose the latter".

Jonathan Elias is a multi-talented veteran of the music industry, known at once as an Emmy Award-winning composer, Grammy nominated musician, advertising innovator and well-respected record composer. Driven in all aspects of his career by a simple, undifferentiated love of all manner of music, Jonathan remains committed to his original goal: to create music that moves, motivates and inspires. With the upcoming follow-up to his critically-acclaimed album Prayer Cycle, Elias accomplishes this goal and more, combining his years of experience in pop music production, movie scores, and orchestral and electronic work into an innovative and genre-spanning song cycle.

Born in New York City in 1956, Jonathan began playing piano at the age of six, and was composing original pieces by age 12, inspired in equal parts by rock music, Broadway musicals, and the work of Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Aspiring to become a full-fledged classical composer and conductor, he entered the Eastman School of Music before attending Bennington College in Vermont in 1976. While still in school, Jonathan began to realize his goals in unexpected avenues, scoring the trailers for Alien, Blade Runner, Gandhi and Back to the Future – a portend of things to come.

In 1980, Jonathan teamed with his brother Scott to form music and advertising firm Elias Associates – later to become Elias Arts. The company had several early successes that put it on the map as being at the forefront of modern advertising innovations, including the crunching theme behind MTV’s “Moon Landing,” the Columbia Pictures logo theme, the first sound mark for Apple Computers, and the instantly recognizable Yahoo! yodel. Today, Elias Arts is one of the world’s most honored sound design and audio identity production companies. Whether working with a worldwide-recognized brand or an upstart company, Elias is renowned for its use ability to grow, launch or reposition enterprises through music’s emotional power. To date, the company has received over 700 major industry awards worldwide, including numerous Clios and Cannes Lions, and an Emmy Award for its Nike “Move” theme. Their clients have included AOL, Mastercard, PBS, Sony, AT&T, Honda, Intel, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Microsoft and Ebay, just to name a few.

After meeting James Bond soundtrack composer John Barry in the early 1980s, Jonathan began working with Barry on scores for films such as Jagged Edge and A View To A Kill. During this time, Elias worked on his own soundtrack work, scoring films like Children of the Corn, A Guide to Recognizing your Saints and most recently Fighting. Through his work with Barry, Elias met and began working with members of Duran Duran, making his first forays into the pop world.
Working with Duran Duran bassist John Taylor, Elias co-wrote the single “I Do What I Do” for the film 9½ Weeks, a single that made the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. He later went onto co-produce Duran Duran’s 1988 hit album Big Thing, in addition to cowriting the bulk of Taylor’s solo album Resumé. As a producer, Elias went onto work on Grace Jones’ Bulletproof Heart, classic-rock band Yes’s Union, and, most recently, actor Robert Downey Jr.’s debut album The Futurist. With a dizzying amount of soundtrack and production work behind him, Elias released his first solo venture, Requiem for the Americas: Songs from the Lost World in 1990. Featuring Duran Duran as his backup band, the album included guest appearances from Grace Jones, The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs, Toni Childs, Michael Bolton and Yes’ Jon Anderson.

Elias followed his debut up in 1999, broadening his musical scope with the nine-part choral symphony The Prayer Cycle. Written and performed in twelve different languages – including Hebrew, Swahili, and Urdu – the album featured performances by musicians from around the world, including James Taylor, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Perry Farrell, Alanis Morrisette and Salif Keita. The album fully introduced Elias’ knack for arranging unusual yet affecting collaborations and ingenious genre-blending. “Having worked on so many different styles of music,” Elias reflects, “I feel it’s important to cross-pollinate in my own work.” Released on Sony Classics, this critically acclaimed album found an audience on National Public Radio and ABC documentary series The Century. Elias again blended his classical and pop instincts for 2004’s American River, an album combining piano and string quartet compositions, featuring spoken word performances from such distinct voices as Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, Roseanne Cash and – in one of his last recorded appearances – Johnny Cash. The album went on to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Age Album.

Last year, Elias began work on his newest solo album, Prayer Cycle: A Thousand Suns, a follow-up to Prayer Cycle. With all proceeds from the album benefiting new nuclear disarmament charity Global Zero, the album focuses on the making and worldwide consequences of the atomic bomb. Jonathan learned about the organization through his work with Amnesty International, attracted by their search to rid the world of nuclear weapons. “I have children, and I see what kind of world we’re leaving behind for them,” he says. “It seems obvious that if we allow the continuing proliferation of nuclear weapons, there soon won’t be much of a world to live in.”

The album continues Elias’ longtime pattern of unusual collaborations and genre mash-ups, combining the composer’s original love of rock music, theatre and contemporary classical music. “With every succeeding project, as I work in various contexts in the music industry, I think I’m continuing to push the boundaries of what can be done with collaboration and combining various styles.” The album itself is a complete song cycle, featuring orchestral work, electronic music, rock shades and both sung and spoken word performances from a typically star-studded set of guest artists. Elias points to one track featuring Korn’s Jonathan Davis singing with the London Symphony Orchestra. Another track finds Sting and wife Trudie Styler reading excerpts of Richard Rhodes’ best-selling book The Making of the Atomic Bomb. And listeners will be thrilled by a posthumous contribution from Doors frontman Jim Morrison, originally recorded by producer Paul Rothchild, featuring the singer reading a poem about the plight of the Native Americans – whose land was violated during the creation of the atomic bomb in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Other contributors include Robert Downey Jr., Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis, Salif Keita, Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sinead O’ Connor, and System of a Down’s Serj Tankian. The album’s music was entirely composed and produced by Elias.

We would like to acknowledge the work of Global Zero, an organization devoted to nuclear weapon disarmament. You can check out their website at www.globalzero.org for more information about them and their cause.