About me

Jonathan Borja

With performances described as “the highlight of the evening” (Kansas City Star), Jonathan Borja enjoys a varied career as a performer and educator. Dr. Borja is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse where he teaches flute and music history, and where he was awarded the Excellence in Research Award from the College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities in 2023. He has been a member of the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra since 2019.

Dr. Borja holds three graduate degrees from the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance (Doctor of Musical Arts in Flute Performance, Master of Music in Flute Performance, a Master of Music in Musicology) and a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Principia College. Before coming to the United States, he studied at the National Conservatory of Music in his native Mexico City. His teachers and mentors include Marie Jureit-Beamish, Mary Posses, and María Esther García. He has appeared in master classes in both the United States and Europe with some of the world’s leading flutists, including Jeanne Baxtresser, Jacob Berg, and Peter-Lukas Graf.

Dr. Borja has performed throughout the United States and Mexico and has appeared in festivals devoted to the music of J.S. Bach, George Crumb, Gustav Mahler, Olivier Messiaen, and Elliott Carter. He has performed at Steinway Hall, Helzberg Hall, at the Facultad de Música (UNAM), the National Conservatory in Mexico City, the Sala Manuel M. Ponce, Sala Carlos Chávez, Sala Silvestre Revueltas (CCOY), and the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Singapore. He has appeared as soloist with the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra, and with wind ensembles in universities across the United States. His continued advocacy for the music of our time has led him to collaborate with some of today’s finest composers, including Chen Yi and Zhou Long, George Crumb, Libby Larsen, Yehudi Wyner, Narong Prangcharoen, Arturo Rodriguez, and Samuel Zyman.

Dr. Borja’s research includes the music of Mexican composers Mario Lavista, José Pablo Moncayo, Silvestre Revueltas, and Samuel Zyman. In 2023, he commissioned and gave the premiere performances of Arturo Rodriguez’s Cuando Hablan los Vientos a concerto for two flutes and wind ensemble. His most recent album (Albany Records, 2023) features music for flute and piano by Mexican composers. He recorded the complete chamber music for flute by Samuel Zyman (Albany Records, 2020), and can be heard inSamuel Zyman: Un mexicano en Nueva York (Urtext Digital Classics, 2020). He also recorded the complete flute music of Icelandic composer Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson (Smekkleysa, 2015), and is featured in Narong Prangcharoen’s recording Mantras (Albany Records, 2010). He has contributed articles to The 100 Greatest Bands of All Time: A Guide to the Legends Who Rocked the World, and The Flutist Quarterly. Dr. Borja has presented his research at the National Flute Association Convention, College Music Society’s National and International Conventions, the Wisconsin Flute Festival, the North Central Council of Latin Americanists, and the Midwest Association for Latin American Studies.