Music
Dean is a composer, improviser (piano, computers) and performer. 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 ensembles including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Band, London Sinfonietta, Music Projects/London, Spectrum and many other contemporary music ensembles in London prior his departure to Australia in 1988; and in Australia with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Sydney Alpha Ensemble. He has premiered and recorded works for solo double bass and many have been written for him.
As keyboardist he has been accompanist for the trumpeter John Wallace and the violinist Hazel Smith, and performed around the world in her ensemble Sonant. He has also accompanied and performed with many others from Marian Montgomery (vocalist) to Sue Tomes (piano) and her former ensemble Domus. As jazz keyboards player he has worked since 1974 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 has been active within the What is Music? festivals, playing piano and computers. He has also played vibraphone with Collier, and recorded on the instrument on the album Lysis Plus.
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 broadcast around the world. 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 commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. His scores are available through the Australian Music Centre, RedHouse Editions, La Trobe University Press, and in several 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 produced real-time and performative algorithmic works involving interaction between sound and image components (soundAFFECTS, Time The Magician and many other works).
Dean’s 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 (US). He has worked with many improvisers, including Derek Bailey, Ashley Brown, Tony Oxley, Evan Parker, Barry Guy, the London Jazz Composers' Orchestra, Ted Curson, Terje Rypdal, John Surman, Tomas Stanko, Ken Wheeler, and in association with many contemporary composers such as Kagel, Penderecki and Stockhausen.
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 (Oxford University Press, 2009; Editor).
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Famous quotes containing the word music:
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—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)