Jonathan May (October 9, 1958 – February 27, 2010) was an American cellist and conductor. He resided in the Orlando, Florida area and was noted for founding and directing numerous youth orchestras and music programs throughout the region. Early life One of seven children, May was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin to Walter and Eleanor May, each an accomplished musician and teacher. At the age of four, the family moved to Fairport, New York where Jonathan would learn to play the cello at a young age. He was a student of Lynn Richmond and played in the Rochester Youth Symphony. When Jonathan was in high school, the family moved, to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He earned a bachelor's degree at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, where his father was chairman of the music department. During this time, he met his future wife, Maureen Getting, also an accomplished cellist and student of his mother. Jonathan received his master's degree at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, where he and Maureen would begin a lifelong pursuit of teaching music that would take them across the country. Career The May family moved to Central Florida in the early 1990s, where Jonathan would join the faculty of Stetson University in DeLand. As his reputation as a music teacher in the region grew, he was made Artistic Director of the Florida Symphony Youth Orchestra in 1994. When May assumed artistic control of the 90-piece youth orchestra, it consisted of two orchestras of students representing 45 schools from eight counties in Central Florida; just three years later the orchestra grew to over 200 students and four divisions ranging from beginner to a top-level symphony. In 1997, he would lead the orchestra on a tour of Australia, which culminated in a performance at the Sidney Opera House. The same year May would also help form and lead the Daytona Beach Youth Orchestra at Daytona Beach Community College, where he was also a professor. May would continue successfully leading the FSYO until 1998, when a split occurred among orchestra board members over the artistic direction of the orchestra. May was reportedly forced out of critical artistic choices by FSYO board members who sought to widen their artistic direction and exclude him from the orchestra's audition process. As May would explain to the Orlando Sentinel: "What this is is a difference of philosophy. One is a strong musical director