Jonathan Schranz MA (Cantab) MMus LRAM ARAM

Jonathan Schranz has been Director of Music at St George’s RC Cathedral, Southwark since 2019 and Diocesan Director of Music since 2023. He studied for an MMus and LRAM in Choral Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music where he was awarded a Distinction along with numerous prizes, and holds a first-class music degree from the University of Cambridge.

Jonathan is a versatile musician familiar with a broad range of approaches to music-making. With a background in jazz trumpet playing, music education and outreach work, solo singing and a decade of professional church music experience, Jonathan enjoys a diverse career which takes him from parish churches to high security prisons on a regular basis.

He is Director of Music for the Archdiocese of Southwark and at its mother church of St George’s Cathedral, where he oversees the Cathedral Music Department and its four cathedral choirs each week. This includes the Children’s Choir, Junior Choir, Cathedral Consort, and Cathedral Choir of mixed choristers, choral and organ scholars and professional lay clerks. Jonathan is also director of the Southwark Singing Programme, a diocesan music education programme which facilitates whole-class singing in 17 schools across the archdiocese each week. In recent years the cathedral choirs have made two commercial CD recordings and given regular BBC broadcast performances. Jonathan also oversees the Diocesan Music Forum, which organises workshops, training and events for musicians in parishes across the diocese.

From 2017-24 Jonathan was the conductor of the Purcell Singers, an award-winning London chamber choir, with whom he released two recordings and conducting multiple concerts in major churches and concert venues. He also served as musical director to the University of Greenwich for three years, conducting the flagship 80-strong chorus in choral-orchestral performances.

A firm believer in the transformative social impact of choral music, Jonathan is a co-founder and trustee of the charity Sing Inside, which delivers singing workshops in prisons across the country. His master’s thesis, exploring the benefits of choral music within a prison chaplaincy, has been presented at the Universities of Leicester and Oxford.

Jonathan is increasingly in demand as a workshop leader, vocal coach, consultant and external advisor for all things church music, with a specialism in Gregorian Chant and Choral Leadership. He has led bespoke sessions at the Venerable English College in Rome and the Cathedral of Santarém in Portugal. Jonathan is a tutor for the Royal School of Church Music and the Association of British Choral Directors and was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 2023.

Private conducting lessons are available by arrangement.

When off the podium, Jonathan spends his time in aquariums, zoos and penny arcades.