Professor
Music Education
School of Music
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803-2504
P: 225.578.2593
F: 225.578.2562
E: jbyo@lsu.edu

James Byo is the Carl Prince Matthies Professor of Music Education and a University Distinguished Teaching Professor at Louisiana State University.

A former professional oboist and public school music teacher, he has extensive backgrounds from both sides of the podium—as orchestral musician and conductor. From 1978-1985, he taught band and orchestra in the Wooster (Ohio) City Schools. In 1979, he conducted the Wooster High School Symphonic Band in performance at the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago. More recently, he was music director and conductor of the 80-member Louisiana Junior Youth Orchestra. He holds music education and performance degrees from Youngstown State University and Florida State University and was a student of John Mack, principal oboist of the Cleveland Orchestra.

Byo has been a member of the editorial committees of the Journal of Research in Music Education and Update: Applications of Research in Music Education; was editor of Update from 1996-2002; and has served as chair of the International Wind Band Education Committee of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles. He is the national evaluator for the National String Project Consortium, a position he has held since 2004, and a member of the National Forum on Research in Motor Learning and Music. He has presented research in numerous states as well as England, Spain, Japan, and Austria.

Byo has authored two books, The Woodwinds: Performing, Understanding, and Teaching and The Habits of Musicianship: A Radical Approach to Beginning Band, the latter co-authored with Bob Duke of The University of Texas-Austin. The Habits of Musicianship was released in the spring of 2007 and is distributed cost-free as a service to music education.