Teacher Profile: John Contos

About John Contos

Classically trained in piano from the age of seven, John Contos grew up

in a 1920s farmhouse built by his Norwegian great- grandfather that

stood surrounded by orange groves northwest of Orlando. Contos’

grandmother faithfully drove him to formal piano lessons and recitals in

central Florida until his teens.

Contos won Richter and Sudler fellowships at Yale University for his

short films, which he also musically scored. While continuing to train at

piano, he began teaching himself guitar and writing songs in Los

Angeles. In addition to acting in a feature film, commercials and

graduate films at University of Southern California, Contos worked for

entertainment companies such as MGM, Warner Bros. and United Talent

Agency.

In addition to building a piano repertoire of works by Beethoven,

Mozart, Chopin, Grieg, Satie and Stravinsky, Contos pursues intense

scholarship of composition and orchestration from works by Bach, Holst,

Rimsky-Korsakov and Schoenberg. No stranger to both icons and

oddities of rock, jazz, country and hip-hop, Contos’ students join him in

a listening curriculum that ranges from Persian classical music to the

film soundtracks of Nino Rota and Bernard Herrmann.

Returned to his hometown of Orlando, Contos is growing as a composer

of music for films, games, attractions and events. As the bandleader of

several lineups, he has performed guitar, vocals and keyboards at

venues such as Back Booth, Peacock Room, Stardust and Copper Rocket.

Contos is planning to work with Rollins College’s Dr. Crozier and the

Bach Festival Orchestra to score the science fiction adventure “Vortex

Nebulae” shooting in Orlando Fall 2014.