Jon McCollum, Ph.D.

Education

• M.Div., Shogaku Zen Institute 祥嶽禅宗, 2022
• Shihan 師範, Shakuhachi Master's License, 2015
• Ph.D., Ethnomusicology, University of Maryland, 2004
• MA, Music (Ethnomusicology), Tufts University, 2000
• BA with Honors, magna cum laude, Music Performance and History, The Florida State University, 1997

 

Research and Performance

Reverend Jon McCollum, Ph.D. (清調研禅 Seichō Kenzen, Oshō), is a full Professor of Music and Chair of the Department of Music at Washington College, where he also serves as Director of the Ethnomusicology Minor. He is an affiliate faculty member in Asian Studies, International Studies, Medieval Studies, and Religion Studies, reflecting his interdisciplinary approach to music as a cultural, historical, and spiritual practice. Reverend McCollum is a transmitted Zen Buddhist teacher in the White Plum Asanga and an ordained senior priest (Oshō) in the Sōtō-shu tradition.
 
Dr. McCollum is a leading scholar in historical ethnomusicology. He is co-editor (with David G. Hebert) of Theory and Method in Historical Ethnomusicology (2014), a foundational volume in the field later translated into Chinese and published by the Shanghai Conservatory of Music Press (2025). He is also co-editor and contributor to Ethnomusicology and Cultural Diplomacy (2022), which advances new global benchmarks for music diplomacy and cultural engagement, and co-author of Armenian Music: A Comprehensive Bibliography and Discography (2004), a major reference work documenting Armenian musical traditions worldwide. He serves as Series Co-Editor of Deep Soundings: Lexington Series on Historical Ethnomusicology, helping shape an international body of scholarship on music history and method.
 
His research spans Armenian sacred and diasporic music, Japanese shakuhachi traditions, music and ritual, historiography, and decolonizing methodologies. His work appears in major journals and reference publications, and he has presented keynote lectures and refereed papers across Europe, East Asia, Central Asia, Africa, and North America.
 
As a performer, Dr. McCollum is a licensed Shihan master of the Kinko school of the Japanese shakuhachi. His lecture-recitals integrate scholarship and embodied practice, exploring Zen Buddhism, breath, and the aesthetics of sound. He is also a trombonist and euphoniumist.
 
Through scholarship, performance, and Zen practice, Professor McCollum’s work cultivates rigorous historical inquiry alongside deep listening, examining how sound shapes memory, identity, and spiritual life across cultures.