Bryan Shuler

Bryan grew up listening to the stories told by his father about the people he met and the world he saw while circumnavigating the globe multiple times. In particular, his father’s sharing of the people along the entire coast of Africa stirred something in him. Years later, as a Fulbright scholar and composer in residence with the National Dance Company of Ghana, Bryan would fulfill a dream since childhood to experience that which he had envisioned from his father’s words. His composition, “Hands of Steel, Souls of Stone” combined electronic music and indigenous drumming and dancing for the gala opening of the National Theatre of Ghana in 1992. Bryan was also recognized as honorary stage manager for the first Panafest Music Festival held in Cape Coast, Ghana.

Bryan began his professional music career at age 14, completing a degree in piano performance and music theory from the University of Tampa. He then studied piano and composition under Robert Helps. Bryan returned to school to complete a master’s in liberal arts/humanities with a focus on Meso-American culture and the Maya calendar, the thesis accompanied by the composition “13 Monkey” based on the calendar’s mathematical equations. He then earned a master of music in electronic composition whose thesis was based upon the genetic code of the HIV DNA and the RNA of the human T-4 lymphocyte. “Song of the Helix” (1991) received international attention from both the music and medical communities, and is considered the first composition based upon genetic coding.

Bryan began his professional music career at 14, completed a degree in piano performance and music theory, and later studied with renowned American composer Robert Helps. He then earned a masters in liberal arts/humanities with a focus on Meso-American culture and a master of music with his electronic composition “Song of the Helix,” (1991) which received international acclaim, and is considered the first composition based upon genetic coding. He then pursued additional graduate degrees in ethnomusicology, humanities and anthropology and conducted post-graduate research on the West African Bagre Myth with Sir Jack Goody, FBA, at Cambridge University, England.

Bryan teaches African studies, world music and humanities at the University of Tampa, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg College and Hillsborough College.