We are delighted and honoured to welcome John Sharpley to the CSS team as Chief Editor! Bringing with him a wealth of expertise as a composer and writer, he will be overseeing all CSS writing initiatives including Composer of the Month and CSS Reviews going forward.
ABOUT JOHN SHARPLEY
John Sharpley is a composer, performer, conductor, teacher, and writer whose multi-faceted career transcends geographic and cultural borders. He holds a Doctorate in Music Composition from Boston University, as well as Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the University of Houston, and music diplomas from the National Conservatory of Music in Strasbourg, France. His composition teachers include David Del Tredici, John Harbison, and Leonard Bernstein, and he studied piano under prominent artists including John Perry and Lily Kraus.
Sharpley is often featured in concerts, conferences, festivals, articles, and documentaries worldwide. Among the notable venues and events are Kyoto City University of the Arts, the Australasian Piano Pedagogy Symposium in Melbourne, Illinois Wesleyan University, the Texas Music Teachers Association Convention, the Across Oceans International Festival in Toronto, the Hong Kong Asian Arts Festival, and multiple festivals of the Asian Composers League. He has also recently participated in The Universe of Sound in Singapore, Our Music Foundation Nepal, several Kathmandu Youth Orchestra concerts, and the Puente Festival in Viña del Mar, Chile.
His work has garnered numerous honors, including the Texas Music Teachers Association Composition Prize, the Boston University Composition Prize, an American Cine-Eagle Award, and a New York Film Festival Award. Additionally, he received a citation from Stanford University in recognition of his contributions as a teacher and served a composer-in-residency with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
Sharpley’s compositions include a diverse range of genres, such as orchestral works, operas, chamber music, songs, and solo piano pieces, alongside music for theatre, film, and dance. His most recent work, Waves of Love (2025), was premiered by the Singapore Indian Orchestra and Choir and conducted by Sharpley himself. Additionally, he authored the book, We Are Music: An Existential Journey Toward Infinity (2024, World Scientific), and co-authored a chapter in the book Improvisation Methods and Practices in Southeast Asia: Music, Dance, and Theatre (2025, Routledge).
Currently, Sharpley lectures at LaSalle College of the Arts, where he has developed a three-year course focusing on improvisation. A review of his book, We Are Music, by Robert Marcow in Classical Voice North America highlights his breadth of knowledge, stating, “Sharpley represents a rare case of a true Renaissance man with his knowledge not only of music (Western, Eastern, ancient, modern, and everything else) but also linguistics, Eastern cultures, religion, physics, math, neuroscience, astrophysics, history, archaeology, philosophy, and psychology… He has the gift for explaining profound thoughts with a deft touch in terms almost any intelligent reader can understand whether he or she has a musical background or not.”
