Jonathan M. Blair is a composer, musicologist, theorist, pianist, and conductor based in Cape Town. Born in San Diego in 1984 to a family of musicians and luthiers, he began playing piano early and started giving public recitals at fourteen.

He studied composition at San Francisco Conservatory under Conrad Susa, and piano with Anna-Marie McCarthy, Marc Steiner, and Jan Hugo—training that shaped an integrated approach to performance, theory, and compositional thinking. His ongoing theoretical project, Metatonality, explores harmonic ratios, voice-leading systems, and expanded approaches to modulation.

Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, he served as music director for a range of educational institutions and civic organizations across San Diego, cultivating programs in pedagogy, ensemble development, and community engagement that would later inform his leadership of professional ensembles. In 2009, the City of San Diego recognized him as a featured artist at its annual gala celebrating distinguished contributors to the disability community—an evening of awards and philanthropy where he performed as the event's honored soloist.

Following his relocation to Cape Town in 2015, he completed postgraduate studies in musicology and undertook conducting training with Brandon Phillips of the Cape Town Philharmonic and Stuart Martin at Stellenbosch University—deepening his commitment to the integration of scholarship, interpretation, and performance.

Recent work includes Umo'ho'ti, a concerto for cimbalom, harp, percussion, and strings commissioned by the Iowa Arts Council, which uses prepared instruments and unconventional sound initiators; the score for Blue Burning, a documentary about the Amadiba people's fight for South Africa's Wild Coast, which earned selections at the Cannes Arts, London Pan African, and LA Independent Women film festivals; and a collaboration with Mikhael Subotzky on Epilogue: Disordered and Flatulent, a postmodern deconstruction of Haydn's Die Schöpfung. His opera The Summoning, exploring AI's relationship with society through the lens of Nikola Tesla's final evening, premiered with Cape Town Opera in 2025. His work has won several awards, including the New Renaissance Film Festival's Best Experimental Film and the National Song Makers Guild's inaugural grand prize.

Collaborators note his meticulous preparation, sensitivity to each instrument's capabilities, and openness to dialogue throughout the creative process. Critics have praised his scores for their clarity, idiomatic precision, and intellectual depth. Audiences respond to the immediacy and emotional directness of his music. Whether composing, conducting, or workshopping a new piece, he is known for creating environments where rigorous artistry and collaborative exploration reinforce one another.

His musicological work integrates critical and literary theory with transhistorical analysis, examining how composers' theoretical frameworks shape interpretive demands. His research also extends to the reconstruction of ancient Jewish temple music, bridging Kabbalistic traditions with contemporary analytical methods to recover historical soundworlds.

He co-founded Stradisphere Music, an organization dedicated to fostering serious engagement with classical music through performance, recording, and critical discourse. As artistic director of its resident ensemble and record label, he oversees programming, conducts, and produces recordings that reflect his commitment to both historical rigor and contemporary relevance. His catalogue of works includes works for solo, chamber, orchestral, theater, film, and opera. His works are published by Subito Music, New York, and Novus Neuma, Europe. He is managed by Sean Laurie.