John Anthony Lennon

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John Anthony Lennon (b. Greensboro, North Carolina, 1950) is an American composer of contemporary classical music based in Georgia. He was raised in Mill Valley, California, and is a professor of composition at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He formerly taught at the University of Tennessee (beginning in 1977), and taught as a guest composer at Northwestern University in the spring of 1998.

He earned a B.A. degree in liberal arts from the University of San Francisco, at first majoring in English and minoring in philosophy, later adding music courses. He received M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in music composition from the University of Michigan, where he studied composition with Leslie Bassett and William Bolcom.

Lennon is known particularly for his works for classical guitar (all written for the American guitarist David Starobin), including Another's Fandango (1981), Gigolo (1996), and the guitar concerto Zingari (1991).

Lennon's music is published by C. F. Peters, E. C. Schirmer, Dorn Publications, Mel Bay, Woodwind Services, Inc., Roseanne Music, Galaxy/Columbia University Press, and Oxford University Press. His music has been recorded by CRI, Bridge Records, Contemporary Record Society, Society of Composers/Capstone, and Open Loop, and (as a performer) with the University of Michigan recording series.

In 1981 he was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.[1] In 1994 he won a Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, tying for third place. He has also won a Rome Prize and been a resident of the MacDowell Colony.

He lives in in Atlanta, Georgia.