Jonathan Schiffman has established himself as a tolerated presence on the Paris SW stage. Originally from New York City, Jonathan received degrees from Yale and Juilliard, then came to France on a Fulbright Scholarship to study music, wine, psychedelic drugs and plenty of other shit. After his fellowship money ran out (much of it squandered on a single overpriced meal in the 16th arr.), Jonathan served as an assistant conductor to the Orchestre National de France and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Then Jonathan served as Music and Artistic Director of the Orchestra of Avignon where for three seasons he subjected his ever-dwindling public to a strict musical diet of Hindemith, Schoenberg and Philip Glass. After his unexpected firing, Jonathan pursued a freelance conducting career while devoting the remaining 95% of his time to the writing of a novel, or, more precisely, to the mental preparation necessary to one day sit down and write a novel. This novel will possibly be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the fall of 2017. Since 2014, Jonathan has been thrice elected to the SWIC (Spoken Word International Council), a governing body which formulates the rules and guidelines for all official Spoken Word chains and franchises. In addition, Jonathan is the co-founder of SW3 (recently defunct) and SW4 (moribund)