Biography
Samuel J. Brannon is a scholar and musician based in Neptune, New Jersey. He currently teaches computer science and robotics at Ranney School. He also is an adjunct faculty member at Randolph-Macon College. He previously taught at The Steward School (Richmond, VA) and The Walker School (Atlanta, GA).
Samuel Brannon holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in music composition from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. In 2016, he received a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
As a composer, Dr. Brannon believes in an ethical responsibility to reach audiences directly and personally. He strives to work closely with individuals and local communities. He composes for many different kinds of performing forces, ranging from solos to large ensembles, and particularly enjoys composing music for solo piano, amateur choirs, and modern arrangements of classic folk and hymn tunes. His music features an interplay between extended tonal harmonies and vibrant rhythmic pulses. He aims to create shared emotional experiences among listeners by commmunicating vivid stories.
Dr. Brannon’s scholarly research explores the world of printed books during the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. He is interested broadly in the ways that musicians and thinkers exploited the invention of printing technology to communicate musical ideas to new audiences.
His research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the American Musicological Society, the Newberry Library, the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Brannon at work on his first book, tentatively titled Music, Commerce, and Ideas: The Birth of Modern Music Discourse in the First Age of Print.
Dr. Brannon has a number of other interests in addition to music:
- Analytical bibliography
- Digital media, and its intersections with art and scholarship
- Graphic design and typography
- Paleontology
- Political theory
- U.S. history
- Venetian history and culture