Michael Dessen is a composer-improviser who performs on the slide trombone and computer. Active in a variety of ensembles as leader or collaborator, he creates music for improvisers and engages new technologies of telepresence and digital networking. His music has been praised by critics in numerous jazz and contemporary music publications, and recorded on labels such as Clean Feed, Cuneiform, and Circumvention.
In the Michael Dessen Trio, he performs his own compositions on trombone and laptop along with an acoustic bassist and drummer. In 2011, Dessen released his second trio album on Clean Feed Records, Forget the Pixel, featuring Christopher Tordini (bass) and Dan Weiss (drums). Dessen was also awarded a 2011 New Jazz Works grant by Chamber Music America, to compose a new concert-length work for the trio to premiere in fall 2012.
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. Current telematic projects include collaborations with bassist Mark Dresser and pianist Myra Melford, among many others. In this telematic context, Dessen has collaborated with visual artists and dancers, and has developed networked "score streams," compositions that are displayed dynamically on computer screens for improvising musicians to interpret. He is also completing a solo album featuring the digibone, his customized 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, Anthony Davis and many others, and he has also been schooled through extensive freelance experiences ranging from salsa bands to avant-garde new music ensembles. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music (BM Performance), the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (MM Jazz Composition), and the University of California, San Diego (Ph.D. Music: Critical Studies and Experimental Practices). In 2006, he joined the music faculty of the University of California, Irvine, where he co-founded a new MFA emphasis in Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology (ICIT).
He lives in southern California with visual artist Mariángeles Soto-Díaz and their son.
