Jonathan Rubin was born in Sydney. He began his musical career as a guitarist. In 1973, the Australia Council awarded him a scholarship to the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where he graduated in Early Music in 1977. He then perfected his skills as a continuist on lute, théorbe and baroque guitar.
From 1976 to 1982, he took part in more than five-hundred concerts of the “Monteverdi” cycle directed by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and staged by Jean-Pierre Ponnell, a production that was presented at numerous European festivals and was the subject of an audio/video recording.
He also teaches interpretation courses in Israel, Germany, Australia and Hong Kong. He has published several lute editions with Tree Edition for works by Purcell, Weiss, Satie, Débussy and Anna Magdalena Bach. His innovative conception of the lute is set forth in a series of articles in the Lute Society Newsletter.
He also collaborates with Michel Corboz and theEVL, the Freitagsakademie, Christophe Rousset and the Talens Lyriques, Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre, Jean-Claude Malgoire and La Grande Ecurie du Roy, Jordi Savall, Hervé Niquet, Heinz Holliger, Jill Feldman, Albert Recasens and The big chapel, Monika Mauch, Nima ben David, Judith Nelson, Gabriele Fontana.
In 1986, he began a regular collaboration with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, particularly during the production of Claudio Monteverdi’s “The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland”.
Jonathan Rubin took part in more than sixty recordings as a continuist, including a CD for lute and viola bass.
He has been teaching lute at the Conservatoire Populaire de Musique de Genève since 200 and has taught lute at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève since 1980.