Jason McCool

Dr. Jason McCool comes from a long line of people who have been asked, “is that your real last name?” Originally from Brockton, MA, Jason holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music (jazz trumpet performance), the University of Maryland (historical musicology), and Boston University (doctorate in historical musicology). He has been teaching music history courses for Boston College since 2018. In May, 2025, his teaching was featured in the BC Chronicle.

From 2018-2020, Jason was the Head of Arts & Culture for Aeronaut Brewery in Somerville, MA, where he coordinated all music bookings for the taproom, and summer concert series including at Harvard's Zone 3 space in Allston, and a beer garden in Arlington, MA. In 2018, Aeronaut received the “Best Taproom Programming” award from the Improper Bostonian. He pursued partnerships with numerous Boston-based community & cultural organizations, including: WGBH, WCRB, WBUR, BAMS Fest, HipStory, The Handel and Haydn Society, Emmanuel Music, and Opus Affair, and booked appearances on local media including three interviews on WGBH’s Boston Public Radio with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan, on his late dear friend and inspiration Brian O’Donovan’s A Celtic Sojourn; and snagged interviews and feature articles in local publications such as the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, and Improper Bostonian.

In 2018, he launched and hosted the LA Live podcast with the PRX Podcast Garage, focusing on emerging Boston-area artists. In 2018, he launched the pindrop sessions, a classical-ish musical event series with public radio broadcasters WCRB and WGBH, enlisting some of the most ambitious contemporary performers in New England in an immersive and irreverent performance series. pindrop ran for three seasons, and was received coverage in WGBH, BU Spark, and Boston Magazine.

In 2014, Jason founded Solas Nua in Boston, the first regional offshoot of Solas Nua, the only organization in the U.S. dedicated to contemporary Irish arts. Profiled in Dig Boston and on WGBH Radio, Solas Nua in Boston was in residence at The Burren in Davis Square, Somerville, and performed over a dozen contemporary Irish plays, featuring some of Boston's finest actors.

Formerly a part of the vibrant artistic community of our nation's capitol, Jason’s theatre work includes: OMG, part of the 2010-11 Mead Theatre Lab Program and for which he received an individual artist grant from DC’s Cultural Development Corporation to co-write, produce, act in and compose piano music; Solas Nua's SWAMPOODLE, a devised theatrical event which included development work in Ireland with Performance Corporation; and RIDING THE BULL, which he produced and acted in for the 2009 Capital Fringe Festival (Washington Post Editors' Pick; named "Best Male Actor" of Fringe, allarts4U). Other favorite acting work includes the title role in Forum Theatre's THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT (named as DC Theatre Scene's 2008 “Audience Favorite Play,” “an absolutely riveting portrayal which was at once moving and terrifying”), Solas Nua's SCENES FROM THE BIG PICTURE (named by Peter Marks of the Washington Post as "One of the Top 10 Plays of the Decade"), THE RESISTABLE RISE OF ARTURO UI with Catalyst Theatre (winner, Helen Hayes Award, ensemble), and DANCING AT LUGHNASA at the T. Schreiber Studio in NYC. He has appeared with Studio, Folger, Everyman, and Rorschach Theatres, Theater J, Washington Shakespeare Co, and at the Kennedy Center.

Jason studied acting with Mary Boyer at the T. Schreiber Studio in NYC and with Joy Zinoman, Denise Diggs (voice), the late John Emmert (acting), the late George Fulginiti-Shakar (musical theater), and the late Nancy Paris (comedy) at The Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory in DC, where he also took directing with Joy Zinoman, and has studied at Improv Boston. He is a proud member of Actors' Equity Association.

Jason performed as a trumpet player and singer with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra (led by Buddy Morrow), the Henry Mancini Institute in LA, Royal Caribbean Cruise Ships, and the Walt Disney All-American College Band in Orlando, FL.

In October 2018, Jason was invited to be a Fellow at the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, studying with eight of the top music critics in America. His critical writing has appeared in the Journal of American History, Berklee’s Jazz Perspectives, the Boston Musical Intellige