Faculty / Staff

John Flood

  • Studio Faculty
  • Director of Percussion, Jazz vibraphone
  • Office: Music & Dance Room 116
  • Phone: (619) 594-7452 / Fax: (619) 594-1692
  • E-mail: jcflood@mail.sdsu.edu

John began his musical career at age eight with the study of piano. He continued with drums in his junior high marching band and has played drumset professionally since his early teens. John was the featured soloist with the San Diego Symphony under the direction of Jung Ho Pak in David Ward-Steinman's Millineum Dances in May, 2000. He has performed in theatrical presentations with the San Diego Repertory Theater and the La Jolla Playhouse. Flood has collaborated with various dance companies and choreographers in San Diego such Melissa Nunn, Allyson Green and toured with the John Malashock Dance Company and performance artist, comedian Andy Kaufman.

Flood performed as soloist with the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra in the Czech Republic for the recording of composer David Ward-Steinman's CHROMA, Concerto for Multiple Keyboards, Percussion, and Chamber Orchestra in August of 1998. John has also recorded works by Robert Erickson, Will Ogdan and the La Jolla Symphony. He also records and performs with his band New Math. John was principle percussionist of the La Jolla Civic Orchestra and assistant director of the University of California, San Diego jazz big band with Jimmy Cheatham.

Flood taught various music courses at Southwestern Community College from 1989-1998 and World Music courses at Miramar Community College. John is the Director of Percussion at the School of Music and Dance, San Diego State University where he directs Fulcrum, the San Diego State Percussion Ensemble. He is the Director of HO-ASOGLI, the SDSU African Ensemble and Co-Director of the Faculty New Music Ensemble.

John was a guest of the National Theater of Ghana in the winter of 1994 where he was reunited with his teacher and mentor, Master Drummer W. Komla Amoaku and did extensive fieldwork in traditional village drumming in Ghana in August of 1998. John spent two months in Indonesia studying gamelan music of Java and Bali in the summer of 1997. Flood returned to the Volta Region of Ghana during January 2000 and worked with Kwame Degbor of the Centre for National Culture studying traditional Central Ewe music practices in remote villages of Botoku and Akrofu. These trips resulted in a program of summer workshops in Ghana for SDSU students and faculty under the direction of the National Theatre of Ghana in the summer of 2000 and a second workshop in Ghana in Togo in the summer of 2001. John currently works with Kobla Ladzekpo, Director of the Zadonu African Music and Dance Company, studying traditional Anlo Ewe drumming.