John Chow Seymour
Lecturer in Music Composition and Theory
John Chow Seymour is a composer originally from the Detroit, Michigan area who came to the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he is currently a doctoral candidate, specifically to study nonwestern musical forms. He composes for both western and nonwestern musical instruments. Recently his works for Korean instruments have been premiered in Seoul by the National Orchestra of Korea, Gayageum Quartet K, and the gayageum soloist Baek Seung-Hee; and a work for Balinese gamelan was performed by Hawaii's Gamelan Segara Madu in Honolulu. His electroacoustic works have been performed at the International Computer Music Festival, as well as at several American electronic music festivals.
He holds a Master of Music in Composition with a Concentration in Theory from the University of North Texas College of Music, where he studeied with Cindy McTee, Joseph Klein, and Damián Keller; and a Bachelor of Music in Composition and Theory from the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, where he studied with Michael Alec Rose and Michael Kurek.
Seymour also performs on a variety of Asian flutes and has been invited to perform at Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cultural festivals across Hawaii, particularly on the Japanese shinobue and the Chinese dizi flutes, on which he also teaches. Additionally, he studies the Japanese shakuhachi with Chikuho-ryu Hawaii under Robert Herr, Japanese gagaku court music instruments with the Hawaii Gagaku Society under Rev. Masatoshi Shamoto, and Balinese suling with Hawaii's Gamelan Segara Madu under I Made Widana. He has premiered his own works for Chinese xiao and dizi, Japanese shinobue, and Balinese suling.
For more information, visit http://www.johnchowseymour.com