Jonas Manuel Pinto, born in 1977 in Frankfurt am Main in Germany, took first piano lessons as a child and visited from 1991 to 1997 the Dr. Hoch’s Conservatory in his hometown, where he received lessons in organ and piano playing along with music theory. Then he started to study sacred music together with organ and artistic piano playing at the University of Music in Mainz. Building on this, he received his postgraduate degree with distinction in choral and orchestral direction from the University of Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt am Main under Wolfgang Schäfer.
Keen to gain further creative and artistic impulses and insights Jonas has participated in numerous master classes over the years, with Guy Bovet, Jean Boyer, Wolfgang Zehrer and Wolfgang Seifen (organ) as well as Sylvain Cambreling, Michael Hofstetter and Robert Sund (conducting).
Whilst obtaining his graduate degree Jonas was already engaged as repetiteur to the Staatstheater Mainz and also taught as lecturer at the cathedral school of the Hohe Dom in Mainz. He directed the chamber choir Bretzenheim from 2003 to 2009 and has been singing as the second tenor with the male chamber choir ‚Camerata Musica Limburg‘ since 2009 with whom he has toured internationally and who won first place at the German Choral Competition back in 2010.
Since 2010 he has been directing the concert choir of Cologne performing both choral and oratorical opus. As guest conductor he regularly works with the chamber choir of Rhineland-Palatinate as well as the choir and orchestra of the Technical University of Darmstadt.
Jonas lectured undergraduates on choir direction at the University of Music in Freiburg from 2013 until 2015.
Youth development work is close to Jonas‘ heart and he has been successfully collaborating with the ‚Landesjugendchor‘ of Rhineland-Palatinate in his role as musical assistant since 2006, alongside directors like Volker Hempfling, Michael Reif and Jan Schumacher.
Jonas has been teaching music at the Wilhelm-Hofmann-Gymnasium in St. Goarshausen am Rhein since 2008 where he has also introduced and, with success, currently manages a project called ‚The Musical Theatre of the Wilhelm-Hofmann-Gymnasium‘.