John Wyre is a guest performer with Paris To Kyiv. For many years he has been on a musical journey that has taken him from rock’n roll, jazz and classical music through free improvisation, contemporary compositions, and world music. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, he has been part of the Marlboro Music Festival, the Toronto Symphony, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company, and he is a founding member of the percussion ensemble Nexus.

His compositions have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Japan Philharmonic, Nexus and other major orchestras in North America. He is artistic director of World Drums and has organized and directed international drum festivals since 1984, including presentations at Expo’86 in Vancouver, the 1987 Calgary Winter Olympics, Expo’88 in Brisbane, Australia and Expo’98 in Lisbon. He created the music for the IMAX film Mountain Gorillas of Rwanda using his world music ensemble Buka.