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Roger Dean : Represented Artist

Random Audio Sample: Heteronomy 4 : electroacoustic by Roger Dean, from the CD LYSIS reissue series


Photo of Roger Dean

Artist website: http://www.australysis.com

Artist website: http://marcs.uws.edu.au

Roger Dean (b.1948, Manchester, UK) completed a BA and PhD at Cambridge, worked in London until 1989, and then moved to Australia, taking citizenship in 1992. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. As composer, improviser and performer, he appears in both The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, and many others. He has worked in Europe, Asia, Australasia, and the US. He studied the piano, and double bass with Eugene Cruft and was Principal Bass in the National Youth Orchestra (UK).

As bassist, he performed solo at the Wigmore Hall at the age of 15. He has worked with many ensembles including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Band, London Sinfonietta, Music Projects/London, Spectrum and virtually all the contemporary chamber ensembles in London prior his departure to Australia; and in Australia with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Sydney Alpha Ensemble. He has premiered works for solo double bass and many have been written for him.

As keyboardist, he has been accompanist for the trumpeter John Wallace, the violinist Hazel Smith, and performed around the world in her ensemble Sonant. He has also accompanied and performed with many others from Marian Mongtomery (vocalist), to Sue Tomes (piano) and her former ensemble Domus. Since 1974 he has also been keyboardist with Graham Collier Music, a leading European jazz group. In Australia he has played keyboards with the Sydney Alpha Ensemble, Watt, and the tenor Gerald English.

He formed the British group LYSIS in 1970, and it became austraLYSIS in 1990 in Australia. LYSIS always presented both improvised and composed music, and operated within jazz and free improvisation as well as contemporary classical music circles. LYSIS and austraLYSIS have continuously evolved, including presenting multimedia and electronic work. Currently austraLYSIS is primarily a creative ensemble which also presents electroacoustic work of others.

Dean's music has been presented live and in broadcast around the world and at conferences such as the International Computer Music Conference. His largest commission to date, SonoPetal, was from the Australian Chamber Orchestra. He has also written for Peter Jenkin, Rob Nairn, Chaconne Brass, Sydney Alpha Ensemble, the Wallace Collection, and for Kinetic Energy Theatre Company. With Hazel Smith, he has created many text and sound works, including Poet without Language, Nuraghic Echoes, The Erotics of Gossip, and the Afterlives of Betsy Scott, all for the ABC.

His scores are available through the Australian Music Centre, RedHouse Editions, La Trobe University Press, and in many books. Some work is for CD-rom, (e.g. Walking the Faultlines, released by the International Computer Music Association, 2001), and for the web (e.g. Wordstuffs, Intertwingling, and Prosethetic Memories). He has developed real-time and performative algorithmic interaction between sound and image components (soundAFFECTS, Time The Magician and many other works).

His work appears on more than 50 commercial recordings on labels such as Audio Research Editions, Discus, Mosaic, Soma, Future Music Records (FMR, UK); Jade, Rufus and Tall Poppies (Australia); and Crayon, Cuneiform, and Frog Peak (USA). Amongst these are The Wings of the Whale (LYSIS), Moving the Landscapes (austraLYSIS), and Xenakis Epei with Spectrum (on Wergo). He has worked with many musicians, including Derek Bailey, Graham Collier, Evan Parker, Barry Guy, the London Jazz Composers' Orchestra, Ted Curson, Terje Rypdal, John Surman, Tomas Stanko, Ken Wheeler, and with Kagel, Penderecki and Stockhausen. Before moving to Australia, Roger Dean performed with LYSIS at Sydney Opera House for the ABC.

Dean has written and edited several musicological books about jazz, improvisation, and electroacoustic music, his most recent being Sounds from the Corner: Australian Jazz on CD (Australian Music Centre, 2005); and the Oxford Handbook of Computer Music (2009; Editor).

Dean is also a research academic, previously mainly in biochemistry, and now in musicology and music cognition. He has more than 300 substantive publications in biochemistry, and around 100 in music research. He was a Professor at Brunel University, London; the foundation director of the Heart Research Institute (Sydney, 1988-2002); and the Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Canberra, Australia (2002-2007). He is now a research professor in Sonic Communication in the Music, Cognition and Action Group at MARCS Institute, University of Western Sydney, studying music cognition and computational analysis and modelling of music. From 2005-2008 inclusive he was a member of the board of the Australian Music Centre (Chair from 2007-8).

See www.australysis.com for more on his creative work; and marcs.uws.edu.au for information on his current research.


Roger Dean — current to March 2012

Collaborated with

Sandy Evans (1989 - current)

Hazel Smith (1989 - current)

Greg White (1992 - current)

 

Teacher/Influence on

Andrew Harrison

Selected Commissions

  Work Commission Details
SonoPetal : full orchestra (1995) Commissioned by Australian Chamber Orchestra.
Timestrain trane's time emit : clarinet with piano (1989) Commissioned by Andrew Sparling.