Michael Dessen

Composer/trombonist Michael Dessen creates highly interactive, improvisatory music and collaborates with leading artists, while also working as a university professor to expand institutional spaces for innovation and exchange.

As a composer, he has been recognized with awards from Chamber Music America, New Music USA and the Fromm Foundation, and as a trombonist, his original sound and broad skills have made him a valued sideperson and collaborator for many creative musicians. Active since 2007 in the field of networked music, Dessen has participated in dozens of telematic concerts, composing new works and co-directing large-scale productions with collaborators in South and North America, South Korea and Europe. He has also co-directed Puentes Telemáticos / Telematic Bridges, a course that connects Latinx and Latin American youth in California and Colombia to introduce improvisation, composition and technology and explore the intercultural potentials of telepresent collaboration.

Dessen has published writings on topics including networked music, the Asian American creative music movement and intercultural African diasporic collaboration. His music training includes diverse freelance experiences, graduate studies with Yusef Lateef, George E. Lewis, and Anthony Davis, and degrees from UC San Diego (PhD), UMass Amherst (MM) and the Eastman School of Music (BM). As a faculty member at UC Irvine since 2006, he is currently Chair of the Department of Music as well as a core faculty member in the PhD program in Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology (ICIT), Jazz Program Coordinator, and Director of the Gassmann Electronic Music Studios. For more information, please visit www.mdessen.com.

Courses at UCI

Professor Dessen has taught undergraduate courses for music majors in composition, improvisation, musicianship skills, jazz orchestra and jazz combos, as well as a GE "introduction to music" lecture course. At the graduate level, he has taught a variety of seminars in composition/improvisation, critical studies, creative research methods, telematic/networked music, and a contemporary music ensemble, and also provides research supervision for MFA and PhD students. Selected course syllabi are available at www.mdessen.com.