My main research interests (aside from performing and composing)  are:

• the economics of happiness as informed by music performance
• exploring the effects of the digital music revolution on music education, performance and consumption 
• Interdisciplinary research project with economist, professor, and bass player Dr. Clyde Reed. We are finding ways of using concepts from economic theory as metaphors for understanding the improvisational process.
• the teaching of jazz and free improvisation, particularly the exercises and techniques of  the late British drummer, John Stevens.
• aesthetics
• social models of cognition in improvised music performance and perception
• arts advocacy in public education and in community music
• music curriculum development
• the role of music in the search for enlightenment and communion with the Divine
• Taoist, Sufi, and Confucian philosophies applied to music and education
• musical performance as embodied knowing

Some of my published works include:

Reed, C. and Burrows, J. (in press)  Coordination in Music and Economics: Free Improvisation as a Path Dependent Process. Oxford Handbook of Improvisation. George Lewis editor.  Oxford University Press.

Burrows, J. (2011) Developing Community-based Music Initiatives. College Music Symposium. Vol. 49.

Burrows, J. (2008) Grow Yer’ Own:  Innovative Approaches to Elementary School Band Repertoire. The BC Music Educator.  Vol. 51, No. 1. 

Burrows, J. (2007) TheValue of Community Music Education Programs.  The BC Music Educator.  Vol. 50, No. 3

Burrows, J. (2007) Reflections on playing and teaching.  The BC Music Educator. Vol. 50, No. 2.

Burrows, J. (2004) Musical archetypes and the collective conscious: cognitive distribution and improvised music. Crtical Studies in Improvisation (inaugural issue).  Guelph, Ontario: University of Guelph Press.

Burrows, J. (2004) Resonances: Exploring improvisationa nd its Implications for Music Education.  PhD thesis, Simon Fraser University. 

Burrows, J. (2003) Confronting existential questions: the benefits of free improvisation in jazz pedagogy. IAJE Jazz Research Proceedings 2003. Kansas:  IAJE Press.