Dana Reason

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Dana Reason
Music Assistant Professor - Contemporary Music Industry
School of Visual, Performing and Design Arts
[email protected]
541-737-5599

Community Hall 304C
1650 SW Pioneer Place
Corvallis, OR 97331
United States

Office Hours
Winter Term Thursday 12-2pm (PST) via ZOOM
Career Links
Assistant Professor of Contemporary Music
Research/Career Interests

 

I'm passionate about creative and original American music, real-time music creation, DIY and popular performance practices, improvisation, sound studies, deep listening practices, sound ecology, jazz, gender in music, sound for film and video, and collaborative projects. I dedicate my time to exploring gender, race, sound, and identity in music. My research is accessible through various platforms, including Routledge, Kino Lorber, Wesleyan University Press, Columbia University Jazz Studies, New Music Box, and Deep Listening Publications. You can find my recordings on MODE Records, Wide Hive Records, High Bias, 482 Music, Deep Listening, and Red Toucan. Reviews of works and projects I have  been involved with have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, National Geographic, The Globe & Mail, and The Wall Street Journal.

Education

PhD University of California at San Diego (Dissertation: The Myth of Absence: Representation, Reception, and the Music of Experimental Women Improvisors: Advisor: George E. Lewis. 

MA: Mills College: Advisors: David Bernstein; Alvin Curran, Chris Brown and Pauline Oliveros

B.MUS McGill University: Main Teachers: Alcides Lanza, Louis Philipe Pelttier, and Bruce Pennycook

University of Florida: Main Teacher: Boaz Sharon

Professional Affiliations

Dana Reason is a Canadian-born composer, music supervisor, producer, recording artist, and educator

Reason recently co-produced Cinema’s First Nasty Women Compilation Soundtrack Vol. 1 (Kino Lorber, Aug. 2023) with Grammy award winning musician, founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of  Jazz and Gender Justice, Terri Lyne Carrington. This soundtrack  features 18+  diverse female composers written for the 4DVD (Cinema’s First Nasty Women) of 99 archival films (2022). Reason was also the arranger for the award winning Reconstruction: America After the Civil War” (PBS). produced by Henry Louis Gates (PBS, 2019).  Additionally, as a film composer, arranger and performer, she contributed music to: Pioneers of African-American Cinema;  Birth of a Movement (PBS); and Alice Guy Blachet Vol.2 (Kino Lorber). Reason has written music for  two feature length archival films including: Back to God’s Country (Kino)  and The Snowbird (Kino) as well as music for several shorts produced by Kino Lorber. She has recorded  over 20 commercially released music projects for labels including: Mode Records, Red Toucan, Deep Listening, 482 Music, Circumvention,  Kino Lorber, and more. Performing and Recording highlights include: Joëlle Léandre,  Joe McPhee, Cecil Taylor, Marco Eneidi, Lori Goldston, Peter Valsamis, Yves Charuest, George E. Lewis, Kyle Bruckmann, Mark Dresser, Roscoe Mitchell, Lori Freedman, John Heward, Shahzad Ismaily, Matt Brubeck, Mary Oliver, Catherine Lee, Pauline Oliveros, Gabby Fluke Mogul, Todd Sickafoose, Kevin Patton, Nicolas Caloia, Paul Miller, Mike Gamble, John Savage, Philip Gelb, Barre Phillips, and Andrew Drury.

In addition to composing, music supervising and performing, Reason writes about creative intercultural music practices, feminist improvisatory and sound studies practices, and  has either published or been reviewed by the following: Routledge, Oxford University Press, Columbia University Jazz Studies Online, University of Chicago Press, National Geographic, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Wesleyan University Press, Downbeat, Jazziz, All Music, and Musicworks.  Reason is currently an Assistant Professor of Contemporary Music at Oregon State University.

 

International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM), Vice President (ex-officio)

 

Honors and Awards

OSU Humanities Research Fellow 2021-2022

 

Courses Taught

Sound Ecology (Honors College)

Film Music

Women in Music

Sonic Arts

Hip Hop Music & Culture

20th-21st Century Music History (Western)

Music Composition/Songwriting

 

 

Discography

       Cinema's First Nasty Women Compilation Soundtrack Vol. 1 Co-produced by Terri Lyne Carrington & Dana Reason (Kino, 2023)

  • Roscoe Mitchell’s Distant Radio Transmission: Nonaah Trio with John C Savage and Catherine Lee, (Wide Hive Records, 2020)

  • John Heward Quintet: Improvisations, (Mode Records - Avant, 2019)

  • Reasoning with Mark Dresser, Mike Gamble, Lori Goldston and Peter Valsamis, (Dana Reason, 2014)

  • Angle of Vision with Glen Moore and Peter Valsamis, (482 Music, 2013)

  • Revealed with Dominic Duval and John Heward, (Circumvention Music, 2010)

  • Signs Of The Times: Women/Men (including Dana Reason Trio), (Jazziz, 2010)

  • You Go to My Head: High Bias REMIX, Dana Reason/Robert Ouimet Producers 2006

  • Fjellestad/Kowald/Reason/Robinson: Dual Resonance, (Circumvention Music, 2003)

  • The Space Between with Jöelle Léandre, (482 Music, 2003)

  • The Space Between with Matthew Sperry, (482 Music, 2003)

  • The Space Between with Barre Phillips, (482 Music, 2001)

  • Hans Fjellestad: Red Sauce Baby (as guest pianist), (Accretions, 2000)

  • The Space Between with Jon Raskin, (Sparkling Beatnik Records, 1999)

  • Musicworks 74: Soundscape Minimalism (including The Space Between Trio), (Musicworks, 1999)

  • Border Crossings, (Red Toucan 1997)

  • Ellis: Children in Peril (as guest pianist), (Music And Arts, 1997)

  • Primal Identity, (Deep Listening, 1996)

  • Philip Gelb: Purple Wind (as guest pianist), (Ryokan, 1996)

  • Da-Ro Re-Mix-Desire, (Da Grooves, 1994)

  • Hard into the Night- Remix, (Numuzik Inc., 1994)

  • Ya-Ya Re-Mix Mitsou, (Tox, 1994)

  • Deep Into Your Soul. Remix of Fan.cie, (Da Grooves, 1994)

Videography & Film Performance/Scores

  • Off the Road: Documentary film by Laurence Petit-Jouvet, France 2001, featuring musical collaborations with German bassist Peter Kowald

List of Major Festivals, Venues and Performances