John Lynch is the Director of Bands and Professor of Music at The University of Georgia where he guides all aspects of the band and graduate wind conducting programs. Previous positions include Director of Bands at the University of Kansas, Associate Director of Bands at Northwestern University and Director of Instrumental Music at Emory University. Dr. Lynch has also held positions as Music Director of the Northshore Concert Band and the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony, and he is the founder of the KU/Kansas City Youth Wind Symphony and the Orange County Music Educators Wind Ensemble. He has ten years of public high school teaching experience in New York State where he was the national recipient of the Stanbury award for outstanding teaching and conducting and the William Revelli Award.
John Lynch has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Asia, and toured China with the KU Wind Ensemble as a guest of the Chinese government. He has two professional recordings on the Naxos label: Redline Tango (KU) and Millennium Canons: Looking Forward, Looking Back (UGA). An advocate for new music, he has commissioned and recorded numerous new works for winds and has received grants to research contemporary wind band and chamber music in Scandinavia, Spain and Portugal. Dr. Lynch is an active clinician and a published composer through C. Alan Music. His performances have been broadcast throughout the nation on Chicago’s WFMT, Peachstate Public Radio and on public radio in Kansas, Connecticut, Virginia, Texas, Colorado, Wisconsin, Ohio and Georgia.
Awards include a Northwestern Searle Fellow for Teaching Excellence, membership in the Emory Scholars Committee, finalist for the Hungarian Radio Conducting Competition, participation in the Symphonic Conducing Workshop in Slovakia, a residency at the Lithuanian Music Academy, and membership in the American Bandmasters Association and Phi Beta Mu international band honor fraternity. Performances include the national conventions of CBDNA and MENC, the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, Le Festival des Anches d’Azur in France, Kansas Music Educators Association Convention, honor bands in Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai, and the all-state bands of Texas, New York, Connecticut, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Indiana. John Lynch holds degrees from Indiana University, the Eastman School of Music and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Professional affiliations include the College Band Directors National Association, the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, the Music Educators National Conference and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. He holds honorary memberships in Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma, and he was elected president of the Big XII Band Directors Association and vice president of the College Band Directors National Association Southwest Division.
