J. Stephen Dydo

56 Bayley Avenue

Yonkers, NY  10705

Voice: (914) 476-9765 Fax: (914) 969-2663

Website: www.dydomusic.com

e-mail: stephen@dydomusic.com

 

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

2007-Present: Director of Asian Instruments, Greenwich House Music School

2006: Residency at Yonkers School 23. Created choral program for graduation ceremony.

1999-Present: Crestwood Music Education Center: Theory, composition, guitar and violin. Set up new chamber music program.

1997-1999: Pelham Arts Center: Began a new program teaching young people song-writing and fundamentals of music. Developed pilot outreach program to introduce 4th through 6th graders to musical expression through a choral program.

1976-1983: Special lecturer at the Institute for Sonology (Utrecht), Rutgers University, New School for Social Research, Mercy College

1977-1978: William Paterson College, theory instructor.

1976-1977: New School for Social Research: Music Composition and Music and Poetry courses 

1973-1975: Columbia University: Musicianship and Music Humanities courses.

Teaching assistant for first and second year theory courses

 

MUSIC EXPERIENCE:

Composition:

Composer of more than 100 pieces which have been performed by chamber groups and orchestras in the US and Europe. Performing organizations have included Rebus Touring Arts, CHIME, the Landon Ensemble, the UK Chinese Ensemble, Gregg Smith Singers, Stichting Combinatie van Utrechtse Muziekbelangen, New Calliope Singers, Group for Contemporary Music, Columbia‑Princeton Electronic Music Center, New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, Composers' Conference, Composers Ensemble, Lenox Arts Center, League‑ISCM, etc.

 

Performing:

Guitarist and conductor: Performed with the UK Chinese Ensemble, Gregg Smith Singers, the Group for Contemporary Music, Lenox Arts Center, New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, Composers Conference, etc. Founding member, director, guitarist, conductor of the Composers Ensemble (1972‑1980).

Guqin player: Founding member of New York Qin Society (2000-present), an organization for the study and promulgation of the music of the oldest continuously played instrument in the world (the Chinese guqin). Currently serving as president. Actively perform both with the society and as soloist in public concerts in the US, Europe and China.

 

Music Publishing:

1998-present: String instrument reviewer for Early Music America. Guitar and lute reviewer for CDNow.

1973‑1977: Assistant Editor, Contemporary Music Newsletter.  

1968‑1978: Founder of the Music Factory, a firm which used my music printing system to provide high‑quality music copy for various clients in US and Europe. Co‑founder and partner of Musica Vera Graphics, a music and type composition company in Staten Island. Freelance music engraver and text and music editor for various publishers (McGraw‑Hill, Macmillan, C.F. Peters, Schirmer, etc.)

 


OTHER EXPERIENCE:

2000-2003: Senior programmer, QTV/Autocue, NY and London. Developed systems for teleprompting and newsroom storage/retrieval.

1995-2000: Senior programmer, Voyetra Technologies, Yonkers, NY. Projects included: Teach Me Piano and Discovering Keyboards, piano teaching systems using a progressive series of lessons utilizing MIDI; notation, video and audio; and Audio Station, a 32-bit file player with editable controllers.

1987-1995: Owner of Thoughtprocessors, a music software company. Designed and wrote ShowTune (music notation with MIDI); Music Power for Guitar, a guitar teaching system using actual songs presented in tablature and notation; and The Note Processor and its support utilities.

1986‑1987: Employed by the Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities in Menlo Park for the development of digital music fonts  for a variety of machines, including laser printers and typesetters.

 

GRANTS AND AWARDS:

2005: School of Oriental and African Music grant for Wind Chimes

1999: Meet the Composer award (Gregg Smith Singers)

1980: Fulbright Research Grant to Institute for Sonology in Utrecht, Holland.

1977: American Music Center grant

1976: National Endowment for the Arts grant

1975: Johnson Composers' Conference grant

1972: Joseph Bearns Prize

1972: BMI Young Composers Award

 

PUBLICATIONS:

Learn to Play Guitar with 8 Chords. Cherry Lane, 2004.

‘DARMS: The Note Processor Dialect’, in Beyond MIDI: The Handbook of Musical Codes, E. Selfridge-Field, ed. MIT Press, 1997.

The Norman Rockwell Songbook. Arrangements, editing, and engraving. Published by Abrams, selected as Book-of-the-Month Club alternate.

Low‑cost Music Printing by Computer, International Computer Music Conference, Paris, 1984.

 Surface Relations between Music and Language as Compositional Aids. INTERFACE, Vol.12, 1983.

 Computer Music Printing: For Better or Worse? Society for Textual Scholarship, April, 1983.

 Surface Control of Computer Music. International Computer Music Conference, Venice, October, 1982.

 

EDUCATION:

DMA, Columbia, 1977

MA, Columbia, 1972

BA, Columbia, 1970

Guitar and lute studies with Pat O’Brien and Ed Flowers.

Violin studies with Beatrice Griffin and Margaret Ziemnicka.

Guzheng studies with Hou Guizhi and Wu Yuyun.

Guqin studies with Yuan Jungping.

 

REFERENCES:

To be supplied upon request.