Jonathan Godfrey
Adjunct Professor, Guitar (Classical, Commercial)
Email: jonathangodfrey@usf.edu
Phone: (813) 974-2311
Office: MUS 351
Dr. Jonathan Godfrey joined USF as an Adjunct Professor of Guitar in 2023 following over a decade of establishing himself as one of the region’s most in-demand classical guitarists and session musicians. He made his concerto soloist debut with The Florida Orchestra in 2022 (Rodrigo, Fantasia para un gentilhombre) and has been a first-call session musician for the orchestra since 2018. He has performed with members of the Sarasota, Jacksonville, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras, EnsembleNewSRQ, the Choral Artists of Sarasota, and numerous regional college and semi-professional ensembles, including a commission from the Bradenton Symphony Orchestra to compose and premiere a concerto for banjo and orchestra (Okeechobee Concerto, 2021). He has been a repeat guest-lecturer at the Guitar Foundation of America International Festival and Competition and has recorded solo works for the Embassy of Spain.
Dr. Godfrey holds his DM from Indiana University, his MM from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and his BM from LaGrange College. He is on faculty at Florida Southern College and the State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota, and previously taught at Saint Leo University. He holds prizes from several performance and composition competitions, including grand-prize from the Boston GuitarFest Composition Competition for his Sonatina for guitar solo, which was praised as “invitingly poetic” by the Boston Globe. He is published with Clear Note Publications.
Equally experienced with popular genres as he is with classical, Dr. Godfrey has appeared with Norwegian Creative Studios, William Clare Entertainment, Imagination House, and several equity Broadway national tours. In 2022 he was selected to originate the guitar, mandolin, and dobro book for the musical Knoxville by legendary Broadway composer/lyricist duo Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens (Anastasia, Ragtime, Seussical), working closely with them on the world-premiere run at Sarasota’s Asolo Repertory Theater. Other notable artists he has shared the stage with include Bernadette Peters, Byron Stripling, and the New York Cantors. Hailed as the “SunCoast’s Power Couple in Music” (SunCoast Culture Club), he regularly concertizes alongside his coloratura-soprano wife Jenny Kim-Godfrey as the duo Corda Voce (www.CordaVoce.com), programming jazz, cabaret, and popular songs alongside their own unique classical arrangements.