Conductor Warren Puffer Jones is in his third year as Music Director of the Ann Arbor Cantata Singers. Equally comfortable with the choral, orchestral and operatic repertoires, Jones has received acclaim as a rising talent in the new generation of conductors. In addition to his work with the Cantata Singers, engagements this season include Music Director for the UM Gilbert & Sullivan Society production of Iolanthe and a return to the pit with Arbor Opera Theater as the conductor for their performance of Don Giovanni .

Recently Mr. Jones studied at the prestigious Conductor’s Institute with the renowned conducting pedagogue Harold Farberman. He has served as assistant conductor to Jan Harrington and Fiora Contino at Opera Illinois. Also active as a church musician, he was the music director at the Morgantown United Methodist Church in Indiana and the Red Hook United Methodist Church in New York.

Mr. Jones received a Master’s degree in choral conducting from Indiana University where he served as an Associate Instructor and director of the All-Campus Chorus. While in Indiana, he served as music director of Bloomington Chamber Opera. A native of Oklahoma City, he began his musical life on the piano before studying voice and guitar. He did his undergraduate work in composition and conducting at Yale University where he directed the Alley Cats and the Whiffenpoofs, the oldest collegiate a cappella ensemble in the country.

Mr. Jones has directed concerts in twenty-two countries and throughout the U.S., including appearances at the National Concert Hall in Dublin and New York 's Alice Tully Hall. Also an accomplished singer, he was one of eight men chosen for the recent recording of Gregorian chant for the Norton Anthology of Western Music. Since 2004, he has served as the staff music writer for Montessori Life, a quarterly education journal.

Mr. Jones also works in admissions at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. He and his wife, soprano Kelly Holst, live in Ann Arbor.