Department of Performing Arts

Dr. Rufus Jones Jr. began his formal training as an orchestral conductor at the University of Texas at Austin. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music, Dr. Jones continued his formal training as a Clifford D. Clarke Graduate Fellow at the State University of New York in Binghamton where he received a Master of Music degree in Instrumental Conducting. Dr. Jones completed his formal training at Texas Tech University where he received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Orchestral Conducting.

Dr. Jones has been accepted to prestigious conducting programs like the Tanglewood Music Festival (auditor), and the Conductors Institute in South Carolina (fellow). Dr. Jones has also been invited to participate in several conducting workshops sponsored by the American Symphony Orchestra League.

Dr. Jones has studied with internationally recognized conductors like Louis Lane, Gustav Meier, Kirk Trevor, Donald Portnoy, Timothy Perry, Kenneth Kiesler, and Gary Lewis. As a guest conductor Dr. Jones has appeared with the Utah Symphony, Shreveport Symphony, Siena Chamber Orchestra, Detroit Youth Symphony, Omaha Area Youth Symphony, Binghamton Youth Symphony, Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra, and the Texas Tech University Symphony.

His professional career started as Assistant Conductor of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra in 1998, under the leadership of then music director, Maestro Kirk Trevor.

Dr. Jones has conducted youth, university and professional orchestras throughout this country and abroad and is frequently invited to national music festivals as an adjudicator and clinician.

In 2007, Dr. Jones was invited to perform at the famed Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Teatro in Florence, Italy. While in Florence, Professor Jones conducted seven performances of the contemporary ballet, “On the Day You Were Born” by American composer, Steven Heitzig. The performances were primarily viewed by young Italian grade school students and benefited the Meyers Children Hospital in Florence, Italy.

His research has focused on African American classical musicians. Dr. Jones has written extensively on the music of William Grant Still. In 2009, his three volume edition, The Collected Folk Suites of William Grant Still was published and featured at the Inaugural William Grant Still Tribute Conference in Natchez, Mississippi.

He is currently writing the biography of Dean Dixon (1915-1976), who was the first African American to conduct the New York Philharmonic and the first American to obtain two directorships in Europe.