He has authored a study of the music of American musical theater composer Stephen Sondheim and a biography of American composer and educator William Schuman.
Swayne is a native of Los Angeles, California and is a graduate of John Muir High School and Occidental College.
He has taught at UC Berkeley and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and he has worked as a pianist at Nordstrom.
He also plays the piano in concerts and has performed with the San Francisco Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas.
[1] In March 2022, he joined the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress as Chair in Modern Culture.