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.
His main ensemble as a composer-leader is the Michael Dessen Trio, in which he performs on trombone and laptop along with acoustic bass and drums. 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 whose fourth album of original music, Eyes In The Back Of My Head, was recently released by Cuneiform Records. His other collaborative projects include "telematic" concerts in which artists in multiple locations perform together using Internet2 networks, a format he has recently explored in collaboration with bassist Mark Dresser and others.
Dessen's own writing about music includes 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.
In addition to studies with Yusef Lateef, George Lewis and Anthony Davis, and collaborations and mentorships with other renowned composer-improvisers, Dessen also 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 is on the core faculty of an innovative new graduate music program in Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology.
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Photos for concert promoters:
Michael Dessen Trio / Solo
Cosmologic
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