Michael Dessen is a composer-improviser who performs on the slide trombone and computer. Drawing on experience across a wide range of contemporary forms, he creates his own unique blend of music and collaborates with some of today's most exciting innovators.
In the Michael Dessen Trio, he performs his own compositions on trombone and laptop along with an acoustic bassist and drummer. The trio's critically acclaimed 2008 release on Clean Feed Records, Between Shadow and Space, featured Tyshawn Sorey on drums and Christopher Tordini on bass. Dessen is also a member of Cosmologic, a longstanding, collective quartet based in Southern California that has released four albums of original compositions, most recently Eyes In The Back Of My Head (2008) on Cuneiform Records.
In addition to performing in traditional concert spaces, Dessen is also exploring the new potentials of telematic performance, in which artists in multiple locations play together over Internet2 networks. Recent telematic projects include several collaborations with bassist Mark Dresser, among many others. In this telematic context, Dessen has also created networked "score streams," compositions that are displayed dynamically on computer screens for improvisers to interpret. He is also completing a solo album that features the digibone, a performance environment for trombone and live electronics.
Dessen's own writings on music include articles in The Other Side of Nowhere: Jazz, Improvisation and Communities in Dialogue (Wesleyan University Press), the online journal Critical Studies in Improvisation / Etudes Critique en Improvisation, and Musicworks magazine, as well as a Preface to Yusef Lateef's Songbook. His scholarship focuses especially on the role of African American traditions within late-twentieth century experimental music worlds.
Dessen's teachers include Yusef Lateef, George Lewis and Anthony Davis, and in addition to collaborations and mentorships with other renowned composer-improvisers, he spent many years freelancing in diverse contexts, from salsa bands to avant-garde new music ensembles. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the University of California, San Diego, where he received a Ph.D. in Critical Studies and Experimental Practices from the Music Department. Equally important, Dessen has been schooled by numerous musicians outside of academia.
He currently teaches at the University of California, Irvine, where he recently co-founded an innovative new music MFA program in Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology (ICIT).
Michael Dessen looks forward to hearing from you and can be contacted at <m@mdessen.com>.