he/him/his keston@audiocookbook.org BIO John C.S. Keston is an award winning artist and composer of electronic, experimental, and improvised music. His work embraces the chaotic ambiguities of environmental and sensorial influences providing context within unpredictable or everyday events. His unconventional compositions convey a spirit of discovery and exploration through the use of graphic scores, chance and generative techniques, analog and digital synthesis, experimental sound design, signal processing, and acoustic piano. TEACHING PHILOSOPHY & MENTORSHIP I believe that students excel when they enjoy their learning experiences. To facilitate this I strive to reach students in groups and as individuals by sharing knowledge, techniques, and ideas during collaborative processes. When I sense that a genuine connection happens in this way, the teaching process becomes more engaging and enjoyable. Improvisation is another way I engage students. This does not mean inventing unprepared class content in the moment. As a musician I know that to improvise effectively, years of practice and preparation is necessary. The same is true in the classroom. The delivery of the content is improvised, not the content itself. When discussions entertain tangents it might seem chaotic or unmanageable. However, these moments allow ideas to arise, and I enjoy the process of steering concepts that are spawned this way toward the tasks at hand. I see students succeeding as the energy that saturates these sessions gets channeled into viable ideas and highly developed work.