John Richard Stannard

Throughout his varied career John R. Stannard has brought professional skills, versatility, and wide-ranging interests to commitments ranging from music, theatre, teaching and museum operations to public safety, school transportation, retail sales and management. His avocations extend further, from radio communications, electronics, and computers to reading, writing and current affairs.

Stannard’s background includes over 20 years study and performance in music, theatre, television, film, radio, and the recording industry in Los Angeles, New York and overseas in the 60s and 70s. But eventually he abandoned show business and the urban rat-race, packing up his horses and moving to Homer, Alaska, where he has since settled into a two-story log home on 20 rural acres near the outlying Russian-speaking village of Nikolaevsk.

In Alaska his interests and pursuits have diversified to embrace new cultural, community and public service activities. Among other commitments, he has:

* taught music theory and choral music some eight years as an adjunct instructor at Kenai Peninsula College in Homer.

* worked three years with the Pratt Museum administrative office in Homer developing computer-based membership servicing, e-mail and internet access, and handling personal and phone contact with the public.

* served a year as radio dispatcher with the Alaska State Troopers in Glennallen.

* electronics technician on callout for the University of Alaska-Fairbanks Geophysical Institute 1986-2001.

* driven for Laidlaw Transit in Homer from 1988-2001 to supplement his other work, holding a commercial Class B driving license with passenger endorsement, and Department of Transportation qualification certificate since 1993.

* Most recently, he has been a teacher of English as a Second Language in China at South Ocean School, Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province, at Hangzhou Song Cheng Hua Mei School in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, and at Xi'an Hi-Tech International School in Shaanxi Province as a Music teacher and ESL teacher.

He has also pursued public service and volunteer work as:

* actor, singer, French Hornist, and audio engineer in regional community theatre.

* communications officer for the Homer squadron of the Civil Air Patrol 1984-1994.

* founder and past president of the South Peninsula Amateur Radio Club, which is coordinated with the Alaska Division of Emergency Management Planning. His FCC certifications include an amateur radio license (1979) and restricted radio telephone operator permit (1985).

* certified in First Aid, renewed regularly since 1988, and CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), renewed annually.

Born in Shanghai, China, Stannard’s cross-cultural interests and experience began early. Youngest of six siblings, he spent most of his childhood in Shaoxing, where his father was a surgeon and administrator in a mission hospital. Several of his elementary years were under his mother’s home tutelage. His secondary schooling was in Washington state and California.

Education begun at the University of Redlands in California brought out his bent for music and theatre. There he studied speech, drama and music before moving to New York City to pursue professional studies at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. Other professional training was gained at The Patio Playhouse (where he also taught workshops), Los Angeles Art Theatre, Horseshoe Workshop, and Theatre Vanguard in Los Angeles. He later took graduate courses in music at California State - Northridge, and in choral conducting at Occidental College. Along the way he took time out to serve in the U.S. Army Special Services, where assignments included an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show and tour of Nike sites with a male chorus of the US Army Air Defense Command, before returning to southern California to work in music and show business.

Television credits as singer and dancer include such specials as: Once Upon a Mattress (1 1/2 hrs.), Hellzapoppin', Colgate Comedy Hour, NBC Follies, and specials starring John Wayne (1 1/2 hrs.), Carol Burnett, Jim Nabors, Perry Como, Ed Sullivan, and Soupy Sales. His work on regular shows includes those of Julie Andrews, Sonny and Cher, Carol Burnett, Don Knotts, the Lennon Sisters, Jonathan Winters, the Smothers Brothers, Rowan & Martin, Andy Williams, Jerry Lewis, Flip Wilson, and Pearl Bailey.

On stage he has directed The Song of Rachel, Pirates of Penzance, and H.M.S. Pinafore, and performed in Teahouse of the August Moon, Anastasia, Father Malachy’s Miracle, Rain, Inherit the Wind, Roger Williams & Mary, View from the Bridge, Adam & Eve Meet the Atom, Tea and Sympathy, Other Islands, Subject was Roses, Skin of Our Teeth, The Boyfriend, Routines (Ferlinghetti), The Tender Trap, Home Free, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Romeo & Juliet, and The Taming of the Shrew.

Concert performances include works conducted by Igor Stravinsky, Virgil Thompson, Pierre Boulez, Lalo Schifrin, Henri Temianka, Robert Craft, Lawrence Foster, Michael Tilson Thomas, and iconoclastic composer and instrument inventor Harry Partch, with whom he worked on two albums and performed in a concert at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

On the road he has sung with the Roger Wagner Chorale, William Hall Chorale, Ray Conniff Singers (in England), Cantiones Sacrae, USARADCOM Chorus, University of Redlands Concert Choir, Pacifica Singers, Nat King Cole Show, Valley Master Chorale, Kay Starr Quartet, Jim Nabors Show, Jack Halloran Choir, Paul Sjolund Singers, Electric Voice, Sound of Feeling, and toured Canada with Nat King Cole, the Norman Luboff Choir, and the Gregg Smith Singers.

Film soundtracks carrying his voice include The Plainsman, Culpepper Cattle Company, Pete's Dragon, Dirty Dinghus Magee, Candy, Bedknobs & Broomsticks, Blazing Saddles, The Choir Boys, Funny Lady, Apocalypse Now, The Heretic, The Last Remake of Beau Geste, and Alice in Wonderland.

Advertising commercials: Primo Beer, Mobil Economy Run, Bullock's (voiceover), Sands Hotel, Radio Call-letter Spots, and Tuesday Productions, Inc.