DR. JOSEPH JEWELL
Guitarist, Educator
Equally adept on classical and electric guitar, Joe Jewell can be found performing as a featured jazz soloist at the State University of New York Jazz Guitar Festival the week after performing the contemporary concert music of Chinese composer Tan Dun at the La Jolla Chamber Music Festival. In 2003, Joe completed the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Studio/Jazz Guitar at the University of Southern California where he was Pi Kappa Lambda’s Outstanding Doctoral Graduate. In 2006, Dr. Jewell released his first critically acclaimed jazz recording, EVERY NOTE COUNTS, featuring some of the finest musicians in Southern California.
Recognized as an accomplished orchestral guitarist, Dr. Jewell has performed on guitar, banjo, mandolin, and other assorted plucked instruments with the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pasadena Pops, the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, as well as many other prominent orchestras throughout the country. Joe is also an active chamber musician. With the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Ensemble he has performed on the American premieres of new compositions by John Adams and Unsuk Chin. He has made appearances at the 1996 and 1998 San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, 1997 Ojai Festival, and the 2003 La Jolla Summerfest.
Joe’s studio credits include performances on soundtracks for television shows on CBS, SHOWTIME and the ODESSY CHANNEL. He has played guitar on the feature films TORTILLA HEAVEN, FOUR DOGS PLAYING POKER, LURED INNOCENCE and UNDERCURRENT. He has played on over 50 commercially released recordings including ten albums for Varese/Sarabande Records. He has recorded for New Mix, Pen Dinas and many other record labels.
As an accompanist, Joe has performed and recorded with vocalists Andrea Marcovicci (including a recent sold-out concert at San Francisco’s Symphony Hall) and Christine Ebersole. He has also performed in concert with well-known folksinger, Glen Yarbrough and has played behind Garth Brooks, Nancy Wilson, Bob Hope, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, and many other celebrities. He has performed in the orchestras for well over a hundred musical theater productions including West Side Story, Jesus Christ Superstar, A Chorus Line, Evita, Chicago, and Little Shop of Horrors.
Dr. Jewell taught at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, NY for nine years and was Head of Guitar Studies at the State University of New York at Oswego before moving to Southern California in 1988. He is currently Associate Professor of Commercial Music Studies and Chair of the Guitar Department at Fullerton College in Fullerton, CA.
