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John E. Myers
Music, Interactive Arts, Asian Studies
Division: Arts and Aesthetics
Year Appointed: 1987
Positions:
Before coming to Simon's Rock, he taught applied guitar and theory at the University of Maryland (Baltimore County campus), at Howard Community College in Columbia, Md., and several other colleges. He serves on the board of advisors to World Music Reports.
Education:
B.A., Towson State University;
M.M., Howard University;
Ph.D., University of Maryland at Baltimore
Areas:
Jazz Studies, Interactive Arts, Asian studies, ethnomusicology, theory-composition.
He is interested in "new computer-based art forms and their realtionship with traditional art forms, including implications for representing and defending cultural diversity."
Awards/Grants:
His postgraduate work was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China, and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. He was also granted a Luce Foundation Consultancy to Eckerd College, Florida.
Activities:
Dr. Myers performs regularly as a jazz and classical guitarist, in groups and as a solo instrumentalist. He is also frequently involved in digital multimedia productions.
In April 2003, working with Swiss artist Etienne Delessert and Alice Myers, he create a series of wide-screen (30 X 60 foot) digital animations, for live performances by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra of Ravel's "Ma mère l'oye." They created an interactive DVD computer installation for an exhibit at the Visual Arts Museum at the School for Visual Arts in New York City, Fall 2003. His compositions appear on several CDs, including Look In, Jazz at the Rock, Volumes I, - IV and in various multimedia productions.
John also did the Lingo programming for Tabla: A Journey into Eastern Percussion, an instructional CD-ROM program exploring rhythmic techniques and form in the classical music of North India, (AIM Records, 2003) and for The Virtual Jury (1997), an online interactive role-playing program based on the circumstances of the Unabomber trial. In 1994, John was assistant Sound Designer and guitarist for Louis Cat Orze: The Mystery of the Queen's Necklace (an Interactive Adventure in the Court of Versailles), a CD-ROM program (IVI Publishing, Minneapolis, 1995).
Publications:
Look In - (audio CD, Jungsoul, 2004), features his original jazz compositions and performances on guitar, clarinet, and electronic instruments. His book, Way of the Pipa: Structure and Aesthetics in Chinese Lute Music, was published by Kent State University Press in 1992. He has published articles in Yinyue Yishu, Soundboard, Indian and World Arts and Crafts, Jazz Research Papers 1994, College Music Society Newsletter, and other journals. He has provided entries for the Asian-American Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of the Ancient World, The Fifties in America, and the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music.
Contact Information:
Office: Daniel Art Center
Phone: (413)-528-7213
Fax: (413)-528-7365
E-mail: johnm@simons-rock.edu