John Sobol - bio

John Sobol is an acclaimed writer, performer and cultural catalyst who has worked extensively in television, radio and print as well as in the music industry, visual arts, performance, and new media. He was born in Brooklyn and has since lived in Los Angeles, Montreal, Toronto, Banff, Vancouver and Bangkok. He is currently a Senior Consultant at 76design in Ottawa, specializing in interactive projects.

Between 2003 and 2005 he was the Co-Curator of Canada’s leading festival of digital culture and design, digifest produced by The Design Exchange in Toronto.

He has published hundreds of articles in Canadian and international magazines and newspapers, including several years spent as music critic with the Montreal Gazette. His 4th book, titled Digitopia Blues – Race, Technology and the American Voice, was published in May 2002 by the Banff Centre Press.

Additionally he worked as a story producer for CBC national radio, and has written television shows that have aired on CBC, Bravo!, Teletoon, TVO, History Channel, Vision, Disney Channel and Nickleodeon. He was the co-writer of The Genius of Lenny Breau, which won the 1999 Gemini Award for best Canadian arts documentary, and has written numerous children’s TV programs including Nelvana’s hugely popular Pippi Longstocking.

Since 1979, he has performed as a saxophonist in 11 countries, playing with Steve Lacy, Lillian Allen, Professor Griff, Paul Dutton and Bob Wiseman, among many other musicians. He has produced 8 CDs for his label, Word of Mouth, including albums featuring Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Jeanne Lee and his own John Sobol Poetry Band.

He has given improvisation workshops across Canada and has been the artistic director of community-based arts festivals in Toronto, Montreal, Banff and Vancouver. Earlier this year he performed his one-man show, Two Million Years of Technology at Yardbird Suite in Edmonton as part of the Edmonton Fringe Festival.

He is the co-founder of Globalhood, a digital playground offering digital adventures to CEOs and street kids, and he designed the Cosmic Questions Media League for the Ontario Science Centre. He has produced several major online projects, including www.electroniccities.ca and www.outloudlive.org

He has performed as a poet at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Seattle’s Bumbershoot and St.Mark’s Poetry Project in New York, as well as at scores of other locales across America and Europe. In 1993-94 he was the director of a month-long residency for 45 oral poets at The Banff Centre for the Arts, where he also co-curated with Daina Augaitis a live art series featuring Kathy Acker, Paul Beatty and René Lussier among other artists.His polyvocal poet-trio, AWOL Love Vibe, performed across Canada, Europe and the USA between 1993 and 1998.

His opera, titled The Salome Dancer, (created in partnership with composer Tim Brady) was premiered at the Open Ears Festival in Kitchener, Ontario in April, 2005.

John Sobol lives in Ottawa with his wife and 2 children.