John Schneider is an internationally recognized guitarist, composer, author and broadcaster whose weekly television and radio programs have brought the sound of the guitar into millions of homes for the past thirty years. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics & Music from the University of Wales, music degrees from the University of California and the Royal College of Music [London], and is past President of the Guitar Foundation of America. A specialist in contemporary music, Schneider's The Contemporary Guitar (University of California Press) has become the standard text in the field.

For the past two decades, the artist has performed almost exclusively on the Well-Tempered Guitar which uses different patterns of fretting according to the key or tuning system required. Recitals include Renaissance and Baroque repertoire in their original temperaments, as well as contemporary music in alternative tunings by such composers as Lou Harrison, Ben Johnston, Terry Riley & others. Since 1991, Schneider's concerts also include vocal works of the maverick American composer Harry Partch (1901-1974), which he sings while accompanying himself on replicas of Partch's Adapted Guitars [steel stringed instruments refretted in just intonation] & the Adapted Viola. The 1990's also saw the creation of his chamber group Just Strings, which is devoted to the performance of music in alternative tunings. In 1995, they were invited by the Japanese Embassy to present a series of lectures and concerts throughout Japan under the auspices of the prestigious Interlink Festival which annually selects one American ensemble to represent new trends in American Music. Since 2000, Schneider has recreated many of Partch’s unique instruments to perform the composer’s singular chamber music, and in 2002 he commissioned the first Just National Steel Guitar, and now regularly performs & records the works by Lou Harrison, Terry Riley & others written for the instrument.

Schneider has performed in Europe, Japan, Vietnam & throughout North America, and been soloist on NPR's "Performance Today" and a frequent guest on PRI's "New Sounds"(WNYC). He has been featured by New Music America, New York's American Festival of Microtonal Music, Denver's Microstock, California's Mozart Festival, the DaCamera Society, Southwest Chamber Music, New American Music Festival, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and The Outsider, BBC’s documentary film on Harry Partch. Recent international performances include Holland’s 6-city HARRY PARTCH:Truth About Tune Tour & London presentations of the solo recital Just West Coast (Bolivar Hall) & his adaptation of Partch’s Barstow with Contemporary Opera Marin (Britten Theatre), as well as American concerts with Grammy Award Winning Southwest Chamber Music, Ensemble Green, and solo recitals at Mills College Center for Contemporary Music among others. In 2004, John Schneider performed at the Norton Simon Museum, the Getty Center, and made his Disney Hall debut premiering Harry Partch’s complete Bitter Music.

In 2007, his group Partch performed in Albuquerque (36th Annual Composer’s Symposium), Santa Cruz (April in Santa Cruz Festival of New Music), Oakland (Mills College Partch Dances premiering a new choreography of Castor & Pollux), Disney Hall (their annual REDCAT multimedia survey of Partch’s music), LA’s outdoor festival Grand Performances, and were awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Copland Fund for Music to record Partch’s monumental Bitter Music for Bridge Records. Innova Records released a DVD of their 2006 Disney Hall choreographed Castor & Pollux. He also recorded a new album of Lou Harrison’s guitar music for Mode Records, while his recording of Carlos Chavez’s guitar music on Cambria’s Complete Chamber Music of Carlos Chavez vol.4 was nominated “Best Classical Album” by the Latin Grammies.

John Schneider works as a music Professor at Pierce College in Los Angeles, is music director for Just Strings, Partch, and is the founding artistic director of MicroFest, an annual festival of microtonal music [www.MicroFest.org]. His radio show Global Village can be heard weekly on Pacifica Radio's KPFK at 90.7-fm in Los Angeles (Thursdays, 10am-Noon) & worldwide at www.kpfk.org.

Discography
• Sonic Voyage: New Music for Guitar. El Maestro Records, 1981.
• LOU HARRISON: Music for Guitar & Percussion
Etcetera [Holland] KTC 1071, 1991.
• Just West Coast : Microtonal Music for Guitar & Harp
Bridge Records BCD 9041, 1993.[chosen "CD of the Year" by CD Review in 1994 & Fanfare’s “Classical Hall of Fame” 2003]
• Sasha Matson : RANGE OF LIGHT
NEW ALBION RECORDS NA 092, 1997.
• JOHN CAGE • LOU HARRISON • HARRY PARTCH
Cambria Records - CAMBRIA 8806, 2000. [ASCAP Special Achievement Award]
• Just guitars : Music by Harrison, Partch, Riley & Scholtz & Schneider
Bridge Records Bridge 9132, 2003.
• Johnny Reinhard : ODYSSEUS
Pitch Records P-2002-1, 2004.
• Music of Carlos chavez (vol.3) Southwest Chamber Music
Cambria Records, (2005). Grammy nominations for “Best Classical Album” & “Best Small Ensemble” & Latin Grammy nomination for “Best Classical Album”
• Music of Carlos chavez (vol.4) Southwest Chamber Music - solo guitar works +
string quartets Cambria Records, (2006). Latin Grammy nomination for “Best Classical Album”
• EAR GARDENS : American Festival of Microtonal Music. Music of Reinhard, Riley, Corner &
Cage Pitch Records P-200209, 2006.
• Enclosure 8 : Harry Partch. Castor & Pollux w/dancers with Partch
Innova Records DVD, 2007.
• POR GITARO: Lou Harrison’s Suites for Tuned Guitars
Mode Records, (release date: March 2008)

Reviews
"Lou Harrison’s tender Suite No.2 for microtonal guitars, skillfully played by John Schneider, made you forget all about the concept and listen to the music. Its mixture of the Spanish-inflected dances & elegies with the slightly ‘off’ quality of the pungent microtonal harmonies, echoing in the reverberant chapel, was a delight.”
New York Times

“Schneider, whose gracious stage personality is the opposite of Partch’s, nevertheless manages to convey the composer through his own voice, which is exactly what all lasting music must be capable of sustaining, even in such unique works as Barstow and excerpts from Partch’s journal, Bitter Music….impressively mastered Partch's instruments...performances lyrical and theatrical, emphasized the musical side of a composer too often known for his quirkiness"
Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times

"Microtonalist Maven"
Wall Street Journal

"A mind-boggling experience...."
Guitar Player

"Schneider creates elegant dynamic levels and layers on his solo guitar, and he always projects the poetry of the music."
Fanfare

"It was Microtonal Heaven"
Denver Advocate

“Of a caliber that kept this listener in a state of continual astonishment"
Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times

"truly magical. . .the superb musicianship should remain enchanting long after neophyte's ears have adjusted to the new tonality."
Los Angeles Reader

"performs with such elegance and élan as to put one's reservations quite beyond the pale. . .A delight, a treat, and, for those who care, an education (or a basis for debate)."
Fanfare

"Performances are stunningly expressive and miracles of pitch control. "
in Tune , (Tokyo)

“Guitar recordings come thick and furious each month, and most are so much alike that ‘been there, heard that’ hardly begins to describe them; but Schneider's discs are something special, and certainly worth the wait.”
David Hurwitz, Classics Today.com

"Thoroughly conversant with the idiom of contemporary music...performed with confidence, relish and a commendable degree of technical polish...a brilliant display of timbres and sonorities of the instrument...the range of tone colours achieved seemed to be immense - constantly changing and with a fascinating and almost sensual appeal."
Birmingham Post (UK)

"John Schneider - guitarist, composer, baritone, microtonal guru… delivered a pretty good facsimile of the old boy’s stentorian growl…As long as there are John Schneiders to re-create passably the sounds of Partch, we'll have a tenuous grip on this unique byway in the annals of American innovation"
Alan Rich, LA Weekly