The memories and stories began to unfold the day before Jonathan’s Celebration of Life in Portland, Oregon. Jonathan Griffith was a conductor, an artist, an educator, co-founder of DCINY, and a mentor to many who lived life large for 77 years, ending unexpectedly with a heart attack on June 29, 2026.
Imagine a crystal wine glass played musically. Some can manage dozens of glasses, each with varying amounts of water that adjust the tone. Dip your fingers in the water and quickly circle the rim of the glass. The different glasses and water levels reverberate in different tones. When well done, it is magical, an ethereal sound that is unique. For those less experienced, it can sometimes be difficult to get the sound started; all you get is a weird, smudgy, squeaky sound that makes you snort, thinking it is an impossible task. But as you continue on your path and the rim moistens with water, it starts to vibrate and sing in such a magical way.
That’s what I saw happen with spoken memories and stories about Jonathan, from the oddest but most beautiful collection of mismatched crystal glasses brought together for one day of celebration, for Jonathan. At first, a little squeaky and maybe not quite available, but as we kept talking, the sounds began to reverberate, and the memories flowed forth, until it became a chorus of unified glasses, all in harmony, singing, crying, and laughing together. Some glasses were overfilled with memories to share, and others held only a few drops, joining in and being welcomed into the harmony of shared connection; every pitch was welcome, helping create a harmony of sounds and stories. It was beautiful.
Sheila and Bill Blakeslee’s Vineyard, with everyone seated outdoors in white chairs on the bright green grass, drinking in the Oregon views of the valley, mountains, treetops, and sunshine; Mozart’s Requiem playing over speakers as we arrived.
The stage was set, and twenty-four representative members of the Jonathan Griffith Singers traveled from all over, arranged themselves in front of us, keyboard to the side. They sang selections from Sir Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man, including the Kyrie, which, under normal circumstances and often conducted by Jonathan, is guaranteed to bring tears to your eyes. Many were concerned they would not be able to sing without crying. Many jokes ensued about how Jonathan would bellow at them to keep it in. LOOK AT ME, NOT AT YOUR MUSIC. Remember how professional they are; they are here to deliver soul-serving and soul-searching music. They did a wonderful job, and the music floated on the wind to all of us.
The setting was no accident. Jonathan loved the outdoors. Camping, canoeing, and just being outside and enjoying nature. So, a day spent under the Oregon sky, in the open air he loved, at a place he loved, was exactly right.
Despite the rain overnight and the wet, dewy grass, it almost felt poetic for our shoes to be wet, gluing us to the earth and reminding us that we are still here. Still of the earth; above it and not beneath it, as more than a few of the stoic, sarcastic humorists among us, some of advanced age, whether of body or mind, uttered more than once throughout the day. There were certainly some old souls in attendance.
It was my arrival at the celebration that day that stopped me. The Blakeslee Vineyard is a familiar place for me, full of beauty, relaxation, and good times. It’s magical as I stare out into the valley, Mount Hood in the distance, mountainous shadows lying between us. As I came up the arrival walk, I saw a table with statues of Jonathan from his home, concert posters from highlight performances over the years, the Requiem playing, and then the box with Jonathan’s ashes; and that was one of those moments that lands. Hard.
Mahealani, the beautiful Jonathan Griffith singer from Hilo, Hawaii, who traveled so far and brought with her magical leis, the flowered necklaces that represent Hawaii. She brought one for me, bright yellow with tiny flowers, and placed it around my neck with love from her and the others in Hawaii, and told me that Jonathan had changed her life. That wasn’t the first time I’d heard that over the years, but it was certainly one of the hundreds I’d heard most recently. She brought another lei and gesture of love to place around Jonathan’s conducting statue, his ashes adjacent.
After the scheduled opening acts, there was an open-mic segment, and I will compare the celebration to a show because, after all, Jonathan, as a conductor, was in show business. The open mic was open to anyone who wanted to come forward and share stories, a common practice at these kinds of gatherings. I certainly don’t have enough experience to explain how it’s supposed to work. For me, the day’s cadence was exactly right. The opening acts warmed everyone up, and after that came story after story, told from different perspectives.
I was asked to be one of the first speakers. I was honored and challenged, because I could have talked forever about Jonathan. As Jonathan’s business partner and Co-Founder in almost 20 years of DCINY, our NYC classical concert production company, alongside 30-plus years of friendship and musical collaborations on stages around the world including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, there are endless chapters and adventures of life I could talk about. And I joked that maybe I should write a book. But isn’t there truth in humor? So perhaps...
There was no livestream on Saturday, and no recording. Only photos and short video clips, and the memories we all carry now. For those of you who could not be there, this is my way of bringing you into those white chairs with us. A few guideposts from what I shared:
That sometimes news like Jonathan’s passing takes time. Time to arrive. Time to tell. Time to land. But that day, in that place Jonathan loved, with all of us together, it landed.
What emerged from all the calls I made over these past weeks, sharing the news of Jonathan’s passing, is a tribe.
A tribe of Troubadours. Bonded over music, art, travel, and beauty. The many fine things in life that root in joy and happiness. People who found each other because of Jonathan. If you were sitting there Saturday, you’re in it. If you’re reading this from far away, you’re in it too. Troubadours.
Here is what Jonathan did: He put people on that stage or encouraged them to do something they didn’t think they could do, because he believed they belonged there. Belief first. The magic came second. Everyone has that magic inside. But not everyone gets a Jonathan to help them find it, harness it, and release it. We did.
And the dream. One week to the day since he died, I had a call with Jonathan. In a dream. He was traveling, checking in the way he always did. I told him I had three things to tell him. One, that I loved him and missed him, something we never actually said out loud. Two, that he had died this week.
That stopped him. “Oh. That’s why.” he said simply.
He was calling from Georgia. The country, not the state. The call disconnected, and by the second call, moments later, he was already in Scotland. No plane. Nothing. Just whisking to every place he ever wanted to go. He didn’t know he had died, but he was enjoying the journey and the freedom.
I never got to the third thing. But I still have time.
I don’t think my story is a lonely one. I suspect some of you have had dreams arrive like this. I find it comforting. He’s free in a way he wasn’t. And I truly believe he is still here. He would never miss something as special as that gathering. I hope the bartender set up not one but two margaritas for him.
Fitting for those accustomed to singing under his musical leadership, I asked everyone to take one breath together, for Jonathan. I will ask you to do the same now, wherever you are reading this. Close your eyes, relax your body, and take the deepest breath. Fill your lungs, your belly, and your toes with the energy of love. Hold it for a moment, hold it some more, lean into a bittersweet moment, so with the absence of breath and the strong hold, you can land in and truly feel the now. Feel it. Hold it.
Then release, with a whoosh, and let your love, from your very core, soar with your breath into the beauty that surrounds you.
About thirty minutes in, Eve took the microphone. She is a singer from China who joined the Jonathan Griffith Singers for her first choral tour with them in Barcelona. She shared that her husband had joined that trip as a non-performer. Of course, when Jonathan met him, he was quickly recruited to the choir’s male section, bolstering the needed numbers. He shared that he is a ballet dancer, and Jonathan replied that he hoped to see him dance one day.
As Eve continued, “He never did, but today I hope he will.” She prepped a boom box and introduced her husband, someone well known in China, a “movie star” of sorts. There he sat in the front row, a handsome, lithe man dressed all in white. She added that, although he is 80 years old and will need to dance on the wet grass, we felt this would be a wonderful gesture to Jonathan. I think you will recognize this music, too.
An 80-year-old ballet star in white sneakers was not on my bingo card for the day, but leaning on decades of adventures with Jonathan, I am accustomed to welcoming the unexpected, sometimes eccentric and often surprising.
She set up the stereo, and he took position in front of us, his arms strong and lean, reaching toward the clouds, his feet rooted in the mud and grass. The music began, and so did he. As the orchestra’s opening harmonies floated by, I recognized the theme from The Godfather, and a smile spread across my face. This felt so random, yet perfect. I drank in the movements of this passionate dancer, who, despite the challenges of mud, grass, and age, was so intent. And I lost it.
It was all so quintessential Jonathan. The unusual choice of the Godfather movie theme. A man in white. A vision of muscles and tendons stretching this way and that. The greenness of the grass and the sounds of the mud sucking on his feet. Oddly perfect, quirky, and truly Jonathan.
Later in the day, another speaker, Jonathan’s longtime friend Dwight Uphaus, reminded us that we all breathe the same air, and that is part of what makes us one. There was a pause felt by all as he shared that we breathe the same air that those in Roman times breathed. We breathe the air that those living in the late 1800s breathed. We breathe the air that Jesus once breathed. And so on, and so on. And just that thought united us even more closely.
Two breaths, I realize now. Mine was vertical. Fill your lungs, your belly, your toes, and release your love for Jonathan into the beauty surrounding us. Dwight’s was horizontal. Across centuries, from Romans to Mozart and Bach to all of us in those white chairs. Together, they formed a cross of air, and we stood at its center.
Then there was Zadie, Jonathan’s stepdaughter and the light of his life. His priority. His why. Her share of the high, daredevil speeds at which Jonathan would drive them from Portland to the coast, and back, helped everyone chuckle, especially when she named the theme she assigned to those rides. A very long pause. Fear. With a huge grin and a laugh. Because that adrenaline high was where they connected. She spoke, and he heard. And later, he brought those things back up. That’s how she knew.
Also enlightening was the sharing from Jonathan’s family, his nieces and nephews, now adults, a little removed geographically, and from the other side of Jonathan’s world, since they were not involved in his musical life. They were wide-eyed and delighted by all the stories of his grand accomplishments in the musical world. Their gift to us was a slideshow, a look into Jonathan’s earlier life, his childhood and growing up, touching and insightful for all of us. Click. Another puzzle piece.
Troubadours further our understanding of ourselves and how we all came, mismatched crystal glasses, to this one spot on a hill in Oregon, clicking into place to honor and celebrate Jonathan.
One gentleman came up toward the end and immediately caught our attention, saying he thought he knew Jonathan longer than anyone else there. As many of us spoke about Jonathan’s long musical career and how he sparked so many people, Wayne, who knew Jonathan from Kansas, said, “I think I can tell you how it all started.” With that one statement, we were all on the edge of our seats as he described a young Jonathan in high school, his start in choir, and the steps we all know from that chapter of childhood, growth, and discovering who we are and what we love to do. He mentioned the name Don Donaldson, Jonathan’s choir director and, as Wayne described it, his first mentor.
What I found personally interesting is that I seem to have the Rosetta Stone that locked many of these pieces together, whereas many were only seeing slices of their life with Jonathan. Of course, I know Don Donaldson. But I listened to his story, and it was beautiful, very much like what Jonathan had shared with me. I didn’t get the chance, because there were so many speakers, to further close the circle and mention that early in the life of DCINY, we brought Don to New York with his wife to honor him with what Jonathan wanted to start as a lifetime project honoring the educators and those who have made a major impact on others. Don Donaldson was our first-ever recipient of the DCINY Educator Laureate Award. I knew of Don, though maybe not many people did. But Jonathan made sure I did. And he made sure that our audiences, both at Lincoln Center that day and in our press releases and on our website, knew how influential and important this man was. That program still continues, with another key mentor for Jonathan also honored, Dr. Eph Ehly, alongside many who made a deep and meaningful impact. I’ve taken on the mantle with my team to figure out who’s next.
I was asked by members of the Jonathan Griffith Singers to read a poem that Jonathan read to them before every performance, as a reminder of how important the work that was ahead of them.
A SPECIAL THANKS FOR MUSIC
For the common things of everyday,
God gave speech in the common way.
For the higher things men think and feel,
God gave poets the words to reveal.
For the height and depth no tongue can reach,
God gave men music, the soul’s own speech.
--- author unknown
I sent personal words to Sheila Blakeslee and Diane Marshall, the two women who orchestrated and arranged Saturday. I told them I knew Jonathan was pleased, and that if he could, he would have been standing at the stage exit to greet them individually as they came off, to congratulate them, as he did for every performance. They’ll understand what that means.
Sitting with several people towards the end of the day, those who knew Jonathan really, really well, all facets, I couldn’t resist and made a joke. (Note that I often say that my humor gets me in trouble. And I have learned over time to better explain myself so I’m not just seen as a potential menace. And I let it loose.) I said, “So, when are we going to talk about the moments when Jonathan acted like an asshole?”
And there was a silence.
And I thought to myself, oh shit, Iris, now you broke it (referencing the old comedy rule: bend it, don’t break it).
I didn’t need to wait long. Along with laughter, the stories came out like a bottle of champagne uncorked. They couldn’t wait to add those colors to the spectrum of shared stories, and everyone started talking at once.
We are all human, even the extraordinary ones. There should be no pedestals. Uncorking that bottle of champagne let us laugh with Jonathan about some of his sharper edges, the very edges he needed exactly as they were to accomplish what he needed to accomplish.
Jonathan was a collector, which is another story, which included clocks, many with cuckoos well known to go off during DCINY Zoom meetings (nothing humbles a high-wired tense meeting like a cuckoo). Pipes for smoking of all kinds, in drawer after drawer. And should the electricity go out, the Renaissance man of Jonathan will have candles to light the darkness for decades.
As a gesture of thanks to all who attended, Sheila Blakeslee gave everyone a gift from one of Jonathan’s well-known collections: one of his holiday carolers, a statue. He had these carolers, about one to two feet tall, the kind one might see at a theme park or outside a house decorated for the holidays. Well, Jonathan had hundreds of them because he loved the holidays, and his troubadours knew them well, gathering at his home every December for an annual Christmas party that is legendary. Now, everyone who attended the celebration can have their own tangible piece of it.
Additionally poetic was that the entire function on Saturday had alcohol provided by Jonathan’s wine cellar. Jonathan’s collection included many celebratory bottles to make sure the party would never end; he always threw a great shin-dig and knew how to celebrate life, so it seemed only fitting that I stared at a champagne table that had endless bottles of different champagnes, all of which had been patiently stored waiting to be opened for a special celebration. And here we were, glass after glass being toasted in Jonathan’s honor.
The universal winks did not stop when the celebration ended. As I ran through the Minneapolis airport to catch my connection home to New York, I stepped off a terminal tram and felt a tap on my shoulder. “Are you Iris?” I turned to see Laura, one of Jonathan’s cousins from the Midwest, whom I had heard so much about over the past few decades and had finally met for the first time at the gathering. Yes! Yes! We threw our arms around each other because the happenstance of running into each other at that exact moment, each racing to catch flights, seemed a wink from the universe. Brief as it was, it cemented something. But to add more glue to that, as I made my way down the terminal corridor, I tuned in to the music playing through the airport speakers. Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto, a piece Jonathan and I performed many times over our friendship, as if he were indicating he saw our meet-up and wanted to let me know.
And finally there was my conversation with Matej Mestrovic, a close friend of Jonathan’s, a musical collaborator and a fabulous composer and performer. The two often called each other brothers. He couldn’t attend the celebration, but I tried to share as much of everything I could, especially because he knew many of the people who had attended. As I unpacked the stories, laughter, and music, he blurted out in a gravelly, heavily Croatian-accented bass voice, “That is not how we do it here in Europe. It is all depression, drinking, and crying. I much prefer your way!”
And that stopped me. Because of course I laughed at first; and then I felt a glow. Because that is exactly how I think Jonathan and many of us troubadours hope we will be celebrated when we are gone, with a joyous, endless celebration of all the gifts we have shared and left behind.
I think Jonathan would have really liked that.
Jonathan loved that view. He loved that place called Oregon. He was its 24/7 one-man tourist board, and standing there that day, I understood. The mountain and the beauty will keep standing. We are the ones passing through. What we leave behind is the magic we make while we're here.
Jonathan’s story does continue if you’d like to follow here.
PS. There will be a second celebration of Jonathan’s life on the stage he loved most. On Monday, January 18, 2027, DCINY performs Sir Karl Jenkins’s Gloria at Carnegie Hall. If you sing, come sing with us as a choir or an individual (email at Concerts@DCINY.org). If you don’t sing, come and join the audience. Details at www.DCINY.org. Tickets on sale soon. Jonathan’s full obituary is available here: https://dciny.org/about/jonathan-griffith/.
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Join me on my journey, two books unveiling:
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Iris, this is such a beautiful tribute to Jonathan and the life he lived. I especially loved the image of all those mismatched crystal glasses coming together in harmony—and the reminder that what we leave behind is the magic we make while we’re here. What a legacy. 💜🙌🏻
Thank you so much for this, Iris. I know it wasn’t meant for me to be there in Oregon and this helps me be ok with that. I’ve started listening to The Armed Man and will be practicing it so that I can do my very best for Jonathan in January. 🎶❤️