Jon Snell

Jon Snell is a New York City-based composer, arranger-orchestrator, pianist, keyboardist, and music director who leads and collaborates on projects spanning jazz, theatre, film, and large-ensemble performance.


As a composer and orchestrator, Snell has scored music for professional performers and ensembles ranging from jazz big band and concert band to symphony and studio orchestra. A recipient of the ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz Composer Award, he has served since 2019 as co-producer and arranger-orchestrator for large-scale musical productions at the Manhattan School of Music, including Season’s Greetings (2023), a production involving 175 performers across 12 ensembles, including members of the New York Philharmonic. His commissions include projects for Teachers College, Columbia University, and the Cedar Rapids Municipal Band, which commissioned a 2024 composition for concert band and harmonica soloist. He has also arranged and conducted sessions for a 30-piece studio orchestra at Avatar Studios.


As a performer, Snell works across New York’s jazz, theatre, and contemporary music scenes. His theatre credits include the Off-Broadway musical Titanique at the Daryl Roth Theatre, where he has appeared as a keyboardist in more than 125 performances, including 30 as conductor/keyboardist. He has also toured with Victor Treviño Jr., the 2022 Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist World Champion. Since 2017, he has served as music director and pianist at Trinity Baptist Church NYC. In the studio, Snell’s credits include piano and B3 organ on Broadway artist Kennedy Caughell’s “Until All Are Free” (written by Jenn Petersen) and piano on jazz artist Ethan Helm’s Wet Electricity, Vol. 1.

Snell’s work is also featured in the Japanese short film Wandering Memories (2023), which received the Gold Remi Award at WorldFest-Houston and Best Foreign Short at the Arizona International Film Festival.

Originally from Iowa, Snell studied jazz and classical piano at the University of Northern Iowa, graduating magna cum laude and receiving the Purple and Old Gold Award for Conspicuous Achievement in Music. He later earned a Master of Music in Jazz Piano on scholarship from the Manhattan School of Music, where he received the William H. Borden Award for Outstanding Achievement in Jazz. Following his graduate studies, he was invited to join the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Jazz Faculty, where he taught jazz piano, theory, ear training, and keyboard harmony and directed small ensembles for seven years.