John Olson

Background

About John Olson

John Olson is a musician, scientist, and arts professional. As a guitarist, he performs in several ensembles, including the Olson/De Cari Duo, the Contemporanea Guitar Duo, and the Brooklyn Guitar Quartet. He has served as section leader and soloist with the New York City Guitar Orchestra. Committed to the generation of new music, John has commissioned over twenty new works. He has studied guitar with David Leisner, Jon Harris and Neil Anderson, and organ and baroque performance practice with organists Rick Erickson, Rodney Gehrke, and Christian Lane. He has released two CDs with the Olson/De Cari Duo:"Quiet Songs," which contains baroque and twentieth-century music for solo guitar and guitar and voice, and "Eve’s Diary," featuring new song cycles and arrangements written for them by David Leisner, Frank Wallace, João Luiz, and Clarice Assad. Since 2007, John has served as President of the New York City Classical Guitar Society. John has revitalized the organization and made it a thriving and central part of the city’s guitar community. Since 2014, John has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Guitar Foundation of America, the largest organization in the United States devoted to the classical guitar. John has organized a series of Guitar Society Summits for leaders of similar organizations, and has led panel discussions on arts administration and career management at the GFA Convention and the Yale Guitar Extravaganza. Also a respected scientist, John received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has performed research for over twenty years in academic and industrial settings. He is dedicated to bridging the worlds of science and music through his Science/Music Commissioning Project, which seeks to expand the repertoire for guitar and voice and explore connections between science and music through song.