James Geiger is currently the Director of Bands at South Habersham Middle School in Cornelia, Georgia. A native of Palatka, Florida, Mr. Geiger received the B.M. in Music Education and Composition from Georgia Southern University (Statesboro, GA) in 2000. After teaching in the Columbia and Jones County school systems in Georgia, he accepted a graduate assistantship in theory from the University of Tennessee (Knoxville, TN) where he graduated in 2005 with the M.M. in Music Composition.
Before joining South Habersham in 2010, Mr. Geiger was the Director of Bands at West Laurens Middle School in Dublin, Georgia. Under his tenure his bands consistently scored excellent and superior ratings at adjudicated festivals. In 2008, the band commissioned a work entitled “Moonscape Awakening” by Joni Greene. In 2010 it won third prize in the Frank Ticheli Competition, received publication by Manhattan Beach Music, and has been performed all around the world.
Mr. Geiger considers new band music to be a vital part of the band experience. In 2014, South Habersham commissioned a work by Timothy Loest entitled “Color Jam” which received a world premiere by the band. The South Habersham Band will perform a commissioned work from Canadian band composer Vince Gassi in the spring of 2017.
Compositions wrriten by Mr. Geiger have been performed at numerous Society of Composers, Inc. and College Music Society conferences, the Oregon Bach Festival, Free Play Artist Series (Grand Rapids, MI), Electroacoustic Juke Joint (Delta State University) and by select chamber members of the Wichita, Syracuse, and Columbus (OH) symphonies, The Third Chair Chamber Players (Lincoln, NE), The Cathedral Brass (Hastings, NE), The Clinton String Quartet (Clinton, NY), and New Music Hartford (CT). His composition professors include Kenneth Jacobs, Sonny Walden, Michael Braz, and David Mathew.
Along with his job at South Habersham, Mr. Geiger is also an Adjunct Professor of Percussion and Composition at Piedmont College in Demorest and accompanist at First Presbyterian Church in Cleveland. In his “spare” time, Mr. Geiger enjoys hiking, genealogy, and traveling. He lives with his wife Jennie and two children Lily and Charley in Mount Airy.