Conductor

JONATHAN DE VRIES 

Jonathan De Vries Vries is the Artistic Director and Conductor of The Canterbury Choral Society. The 2026-2027 season marks his nineteenth year of collaboration with the Canterbury Choral Society and the thirteenth season as Artistic Director. Each season of Canterbury's performances are an eclectic mix of performing the choral masterworks of the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras, infused with music from the greatest composers of the 20th Century. He is also the Upper School Choral and Musical Theater Director at Greenwich Country Day School in Greenwich, Connecticut. On October 10, 2025, Mr. De Vries and the Canterbury Choral Society were awarded the National Medal of Fine Arts for their work promoting and advocating for children in the performing arts. This annual award was conferred by the Motif Awards International Selection Committee in recognition for CCS’s work “as advocates for the arts and as ambassadors of humanity through music.”

 Mr. De Vries made his Carnegie Hall conducting debut in November 2017 leading Gustav Mahler’s choral-orchestral Eighth Symphony (his monumental “Symphony of a Thousand”) and the world premiere of Bound for Glory by Rollo Dilworth, which included a youth choir made up of 350 students from 9 different choirs. Previous Canterbury seasons under his baton have included major works such as J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, St. John’s Passion, Mass in B Minor, and Weihnachts-Oratorium; Handel’s Messiah, Judas Maccabaeus, Samson and Saul; Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah; Second Sacred Concert by Duke Ellington; Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem; Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana; Benjamin Britten’s cantata Saint Nicolas; major choral works by Vaughan Williams, Vivaldi, Arnesen, Puccini; the 2018 revival of Oratorio di San Francesco by Adriano Adriani. All told, he has conducted 38 oratorios and orchestral works, 20 musicals, and 4 operas. 

Mr. De Vries studied the Kodály method, music theory and ear training at NYU Steinhardt and at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Kecskemét, Hungary. He has done extensive research through grants in Italy and Austria focusing on 20th-century composers. He holds a B.A. in Conducting and Voice from Calvin University and a M.S. in Education from Queen’s College, CUNY. He has led ensembles nationally and internationally, performing at Christ Church Cathedral Oxford, Westminster Abbey, Chartres, Orléans, Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, and Notre Dame de Paris.