John C. Griffin is a pianist and composer from Kalamazoo, Michigan. Born March 10, 1979, he received both his Bachelor’s degree (2002) and Master’s degree (2004) in music composition from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. While at WMU, he studied piano with Lori Sims and composition with Richard Adams, Curtis Curtis-Smith, and Robert Ricci. As an undergraduate, he was the recipient of a four-year WMU Medallion Scholarship. As a graduate student, he was awarded the Graduate College Fellowship for the 2002-2003 academic year. In May 2008, he received his Ph.D. in composition at the University of Iowa, where he studied composition with David Gompper and electronic music with Lawrence Fritts. He also served as a teaching assistant for freshman and sophomore Musicianship and Theory, as well as Fundamentals of Music for Majors.
Mr. Griffin has been influenced by a wide variety of musicians, including such twentieth-century composers as John Adams, Barber, Bartók, William Bolcom, Britten, Copland, Debussy, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Ravel, Steve Reich, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky. A special area of interest is the work of major film composers, particularly John Barry, Elmer Bernstein, Danny Elfman, Jerry Fielding, Jerry Goldsmith, Bernard Herrmann, Ennio Morricone, Thomas Newman, Miklos Rozsa, Lalo Schifrin, David Shire, Howard Shore, Franz Waxman, and John Williams. Other influences have been jazz and ragtime, especially the works of Bill Evans, George Gershwin, Scott Joplin, and Oscar Peterson.
In 1999, Mr. Griffin was first runner-up in the WMUK Fanfare Competition with his Golden Anniversary Fanfare for brass quintet. In 2004, he was the winner of the Western Michigan University Graduate Winds Composition Competition for his wind octet Three Mood Shifts, premiered on March 17 of that year. On February 10 of the same year, he organized a campus composers recital at WMU. He has also provided music transcriptions and arrangements for two productions at the Kalamazoo Civic Theater: Dark of the Moon (1999) and A Woman Called Truth (2002). In the summer of 2004, he served as musical advisor for Kalamazoo College’s production of Hair. He was commisioned by the Kalamazoo Civic Theater to write incidental music for its production of Elizabeth Rex, which ran in April of 2005. In May 2008, he was composer and musical director for the University of Iowa theatrical production of Dust Town.
Other original works include Counterrevolution for solo violin, originally performed by Daniel Vega-Albela; Suite for Solo Saxophone, composed for Matthew Lefebvre; Dance Suite for Viola and Piano, premiered by Katarzyna Bugaj and John Griffin; and Waves and Ripples for clarinetist Tim Zehr. In addition to his composition projects, he has performed as solo pianist or accompanist at private functions in the Kalamazoo area, including events at the Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts and the Fetzer Center, WMU.
Compositions written at the University of Iowa include Ellisonia for saxophone quartet, inspired by the works of Harlan Ellison, Ozymandias for baritone voice and chamber ensemble, based on the sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, High Pressure for brass quintet, and Concertino for Piano and Chamber Ensemble, his Doctoral dissertation. His piece for electronic media and video, Man and Machine (with digital animation by Matthew Priest), was selected for performance at the Imagine II Electroacoustic Music Festival in Memphis, Tennessee on November 2, 2006. Another work Sold American! for marimba and tape, was performed at the Electroacoustic Juke Joint in Cleveland, Mississippi, on November 10, 2007.
Mr. Griffin is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honor Society, and Phi Kappa Phi National Academic Honor Society. He has previosuly served as President of the University of Iowa chapter of the Society of Composers, Inc.