photo | Megan Wegmann
John Steven Morgan is an American composer and pianist. He has performed at the 54th and 56th Monterey Jazz Festival, Monterey First City Festival, The Wattis Room at SF Davies Symphony Hall, and toured internationally. Along with composing and performing his solo piano pieces, he writes music for Wreche, an experimental black metal project that supplants guitars with piano, infusing the genres tropes with the classical lexicon. Wreche has been internationally reviewed since the project's inception in 2017 - and featured in Zero Tolerance Magazine for the 2021 album, All my dreams came true. The project has recently been signed to the avant-garde underground metal label I, Voidhanger Records. John Steven Morgan holds a B.A. in English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley.
“John can usually be found around the streets of San Francisco and Oakland playing tenderly on a beat-up beaut of a piano. Original tunes emerge from key choices such as light, bouncy ditties and powerfully thunderous dramatic pieces. Any which way you catch it, spin it, see it, or hear it, John Steven Morgan will spellbind and enthrall with piano-finger-fast musical mastery.”
photo | Lance Iversen, SF Chronicle (2011)
He has scored various short films, most notably The Perfect Hello , by Oakland director/writer Zack Kasten (Music co-written with Greg Ashley – of The Gris Gris). It has premiered in the Marfa Film Festival, Artsfest Film Festival, Seattle True Independent Film Festival and more. He also maintains a long-standing collaboration with film maker Paul Trillo.
The Perfect Hello by Zack Kasten (2012)
John's previous projects include pianist/composer in The John Brothers Piano Company, which garnered attention for their radical street performances; pianist in The Greg Ashley Band on Another Generation of Slaves; Architeuthis – John and Barret Baumgart's first collaboration in 2008; and Part Time. As a drummer he has performed in Beef Donut, Cumstain, and a 2012 Pac/NW tour with Apache.
“Having painted the exposed hammers of their Wurlitzer spinet piano with lacquer to make their sound even louder, they fill the air with a throwback sound that evokes the honky-tonk ghosts of Barbary Coast.”
photo | Megan Wegmann (2010)
Just the One of Us by Paul Trillo
Another Generation of Slaves by Greg Ashley | Pictured Greg Ashley, John Morgan, Thatcher Boomer
The John Brothers Piano Company Quintet
photo | Ria Burman