Jonathan Perl is the Associate Director of the Sonic Arts Center at City College and is back in the Music School where he once earned a BFA in Performance. Like many former students he was drawn to return to City College to give back expertise and knowledge. Jonathan started out playing blues and has been improvising, composing and songwriting for 30 years.

Before attending City College he took piano lessons and studied theory, harmony and jazz at Hunter College. At night he played music around New York and composed for other musicians.

His immersion in the burgeoning professional music scene around the City while studying musicianship in college provided a strong academic and practical background.

While attending City College he began work with Paul Kozel and when the Sonic Arts Center was established in 1993, with Paul as Director, Jonathan took on the role of the essential support to the Center in the areas of teaching, administration, promotion and technical issues.

Jonathan's forte is in keyboard improvisation, writing, arranging, recording and producing. He helped rock bands such as Thisway, an alternative pop quartet, to secure recording contracts. He improvised for modern dance schools such as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the José Limón Dance Company.

As befits a professional within the sonic music field, Jonathan has worked on creating unique ambient groove new world music as a musician and producer within Wired Planet Music, an award-winning team of songwriters, composers, and producers who mix advanced music techniques and cutting edge technology to create viable ambient music with lush production and strong quality control.

Recently Jonathan edited and co-mixed the music score for the feature film Racing Daylight, featuring David Straithairn and Melissa Leo. As a consultant, he has assisted a diverse range of artists, composers and producers, including Pat Metheny, Shep Pettibone (Madonna), John Cale (Velvet Underground), Richard Einhorn (Joan of Arc) and others.

As an author and trainer, he has published the DVD titles Inside Logic Pro 7.1, Jump Start: Logic Pro 8, and Jump Start: Main Stage and the Logic Library of Instruments and Effects.

Jonathan founded the New York Logic Pro Users Group in 2005, and co-founded Mac Audio Trainers, in 2006, an Apple Authorized Training Center for Apple's Logic Pro.