John Mayrose is a composer as well as an active performer, having performed and premiered new works for classical guitar, electric guitar, electric bass, mandolin, banjo and MIDI guitar, as well as more traditional performances on classical guitar, and more recently, the tenor viola da gamba. He holds a Ph.D. in composition at Duke University and a B.M. degree from the University of South Carolina Honors College. His teachers have included Stephen Jaffe, Scott Lindroth, Sidney Hodkinson, Anthony Kelley, Christopher Berg, and Michael Cedric Smith. John has participated in the Aspen Music Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, and the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival.
John's music has been played throughout North America and Australia, by among others, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Fireworks, pulsoptional, Duo d'amore, Metamorphosen, and the University of North Carolina Wind Symphony as part of the Milestones 2002 Music Festival. Recent commissions are from the Southeastern Music Library Association, and Geoffrey Burgess for performance on the Australian Broadcast Company. His work Vivaldiana is available on Duo d'amore's CD Incantations and Inspirations. He is the recipient of the William Klenz Prize in Composition (2001), the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer's Award (2004) for "What Hath God Wrought": Reflections on a Theme by Samuel F. B. Morse, the Bass Named Instructorship (Duke 2005/2006), and the Mary Duke Biddle Fellowship. Along with his research into music, meaning and semiotics in the music of Alfred Schnittke, he has taught courses on music theory, music and technology, and electronic music at Duke. John is a member of the new music ensemble pulsoptional, a composer's collective based in Durham, North Carolina, and is director of publishing for Fugu Fish Publishing.