with Michael Dessen, Mark Dresser, Nicole Mitchell and Sarah Weaver

The history of multi-site sound collaboration has taken a number of forms. Collaborators within the field of Telematics have proposed new forms of music and consciousness, deepened capacity for intercultural dialogue and understanding, and advanced a host of innovative practices in digital music making. Sarah Weaver, Michael Dessen, Mark Dresser, and Nicole Mitchell will speak to their experiences in remote collaboration and telematics

MICHAEL DESSEN
Musician and Professor at UC Irvine

Michael Dessen is a composer/trombonist who creates music for improvisers, often integrating technologies such as telematics, networked scores and live electronics. For over two decades, he has composed and performed across a wide array of contexts, collaborating with leading innovators while also helping build new spaces in higher education for creative musical exploration. Dessen's teachers include Yusef Lateef, George E. Lewis, and Anthony Davis, and he is a Professor at the University of California, Irvine, where he co-founded a graduate program in Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology (ICIT). mdessen.com

MARK DRESSER

Performer/composer/telematic activist

Mark Dresser is a Grammy-nominated, internationally renowned bass player, improviser, and composer. At the core of his music is an obsession and commitment to expanding the sonic, musical, and expressive possibilities of the contrabass. He has recorded over 150 CDs including ten CDs as composer/bandleader, five solo recordings, and a DVD and his most recent solo LP Modicana (2017).  From 1985 to 1994, he was a member of Anthony Braxton’s Quartet. He has also performed and recorded music of Ray Anderson, Jane Ira Bloom, Tim Berne, Anthony Davis, Dave Douglas, Osvaldo Golijov, Gerry Hemingway, Lei Liang, Bob Ostertag, Joe Lovano, Roger Reynolds, Henry Threadgill, Dawn Upshaw, John Zorn. Since 2007 he has been deeply involved in telematic music performance and education. He was awarded a 2015 & 2018 Shifting Foundation Award and 2015 Doris Duke Impact Award. He is Professor of Music at University of California, San Diego.  www.mark-dresser.com  

NICOLE MITCHELL

Nicole Mitchell is an award-winning creative flutist, composer, conceptualist, bandleader, and educator. A United States Artist (2020), Doris Duke Artist (2012) and recipient of the Herb Alpert Award (2011), her research centers on the powerful legacy of contemporary African American culture and black experimental art. For over 20 years, Mitchell’s critically acclaimed Black Earth Ensemble (BEE) has been her primary compositional laboratory with which she has recorded 10 albums and performed at festivals and art venues throughout Europe, Canada, and the US. An emeritus president of the AACM, she composes for contemporary ensembles of varied instrumentation and size (from solo to orchestra and big band) while incorporating improvisation and a wide aesthetic expression. Her recognition as a 2018 recipient of the Champion of New Music Award from the American Composers Forum and the 2019 Women In Jazz Visionary Award from the Jazz Institute of Chicago are positive responses to her community impact. Much of Mitchell’s creative process has been informed by literature and narrative, with a special interest in science fiction. Her album, Mandorla Awakening (FPE, 2017), combined Afrofuturism with intercultural collaboration and was selected by the New York Times as the #1 jazz album of 2017. As a composer, she has been commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Newport Jazz Festival, the Art Institute of Chicago, the French American Jazz Exchange, Chamber Music America, Jazztopad Festival (Wroclaw), the Chicago Jazz Festival, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and the Chicago Sinfonietta. As a flutist she has developed her own signature language and has been a repeated recipient of the Top Jazz Flutist awards from Jazz Journalists Association and DownBeat Magazine from 2010-2019. Mitchell’s mission is to celebrate the power of endless possibility by “creating visionary worlds through music that bridge the familiar and the unknown.” She is the William S. Dietrich II Chair for Jazz Studies at University of Pittsburgh, where she works to continue the visionary legacies of her predecessors Geri Allen and Nathan Davis. Mitchell was previously a professor of music at University of California, Irvine.

SARAH WEAVER

Director, NowNet Arts

Sarah Weaver, Ph.D. is a New York-based contemporary composer, conductor, technologist, educator, and researcher working internationally as a specialist in Network Arts. Weaver has composed solo, chamber, and large ensemble works for groundbreaking musicians for over twenty years, integrating influences of jazz, contemporary classical, improvisation, computer music, world music, and innovative individual music languages of performers. She is an innovator of live performance via the internet by musicians and artists in different geographic locations, encompassing numerous artistic projects with collaborators and interdisciplinary projects with groups such as NASA Kepler/K2 Mission and United Nations. Weaver is the Director of NowNet Arts Inc., Director of the Sarah Weaver Ensemble, and Editor of the Journal of Network Music and Arts (JONMA).