PHOTO BY SEAN FOWLER
Jon Dostou is a contemporary composer, arranger, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist who has been making music on stages around the United States for many years. From 2018-2020 he served as the Music Director for Northern California's Premier Party Band, Superbad, headlining shows throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Dostou currently works with Downtown Funk, an energetic Boston-area dance band, and with The Sultans, entertaining some of the most urbane crowds in the Northeast. He is also a Montessori Teaching Artist-in-Residence in Newton, Massachusetts, in addition to maintaining an active private lesson studio.
In 2016, with the band Phonosynthesis, Dostou released his first full-length album, GRÜVHAUS. The album itself, which was meticulously produced over the better part of a year has been described by critics as, "Cleverly devised... the ultimate experience," and has been compared to the The Meters, Emerson Lake and Palmer, John Scofield, Steely Dan and Larry Carlton. In 2017, Phonosynthesis won the Hartford Courant reader’s award for Best Jam Band.
Dostou has performed at notable venues such as The New England Conservatory, Symphony Hall, Nash Bar, Lansdowne Pub, and Loretta’s in Boston, Massachusetts, Blue in Portland, Maine, The Pressroom and The Thirsty Moose in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, Infinity Hall, and The Arch Street Tavern in Hartford, Connecticut, The Spot Underground in Providence, Rhode Island, The Way Station, Pianos, and the HERE Arts Center in New York City, Maggie McGarry’s in North Beach San Francisco, the Powerhouse Pub in Folsom, California, and The Silver Legacy in Reno, Nevada. He has shared the stage with mainstream artists like Gracie Day, Kyle Ericson, Houston Bernard, and Austin James. Dostou’s bands have opened shows for national acts like Marco Benevento, Jesse Malin, West End Blend, McLovins, Alan Evans of Soulive, and Frank Hannon of Tesla.
An earnest student of music, Dostou earned a Bachelor’s degree from Berklee College of Music in 2009, and a Master’s degree from The Hartt School of Music in 2011, with concentrations in jazz, composition, and orchestration. His 2008 composition, All Romance Leads to Egypt, was debuted in a performance by the Berklee Concert Jazz Orchestra, featuring internationally acclaimed saxophonist Benny Golson. Having learned from composers like Greg Hopkins and David Macbride, and studying the music of icons like The Beatles, Thelonious Monk, Frank Zappa and a myriad of classical and jazz composers, Dostou works to craft his own inimitable style.