Music

Dana Reason is a Canadian-born composer, improviser, pianist, and music researcher. She was part of The Space Between trio with electronic music pioneer Pauline Oliveros; is documented on over 14 recordings, and has created music for film, theatre, and large and small ensembles. In fall 2016, she toured Oregon with Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky) and his Heart of a Forest project. As a pianist, she appears on the soundtracks Within Our Gates and Body and Soul on Pioneers of African-American Cinema (Kino-2016) as well as the PBS documentary soundtrack - Birth of a Movement (2017). Her composition "Currents" for wind ensemble (Mark Records) as well as her trio album "Angle of Vision" (482 Music) were both long listed for GRAMMY awards in 2014. Reason premiered her sound-art sculpture, UnHeard, at CEI Artworks in 2016. Additionally, her sound-sculpture Folded Subjects: Olive Rose (2017) was part of the "Still Listening" exhibit dedicated to the life and work of Pauline Oliveros (McGill University/ICASP). Reason is part of the Re.Soundings trio (featuring Catherine Lee, oboe and John Savage, flute) which specializes in exploring works by living composers. The trio recently recorded Nonaah by Roscoe Mitchell. Reason is the founder and artistic director of Between the Cracks Forum: music, sound & interactivity (2008-present); a cross-disciplinary initiative designed to foster contemporary and creative music performance and The Red Room Series.

Research and performance interests include: 20 & 21st century music practices; gender and music; post 1945 jazz; hip hop, sound ecology and sonic studies; film, global musics, video and popular music. Her research is available at: Jazz studies On-line: Columbia University, Wesleyan University Press, Musicworks, and 20th Century Music. Reviews about her music appear in Downbeat, Keyboard Magazine, Jazziz, Coda, Cadence, Musicworks and All About Jazz.

Reason studied piano with Boaz Sharon, Julie Stienberg and Aleck Karis; composition & improvisation with Alcides Lanza, John Rea, Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Curran, Anthony Davis, Chaya Czernowin and George. E. Lewis. Additionally, she studied critical and integrative musicology with Jann Pasler and George E. Lewis. 

As a performer, she has toured and appeared at Frau Musica Nova, Banff Center for the Arts, The Stone, Stanford University, San Francisco Jazz Festival, Spring Reverb, and Is that Jazz? Festival, ICASP, Guelph Jazz Festival, Western Front, and Improvisation Summit of Portland, as well as performed in Canada and Europe.

Reason holds a Bachelor of Music from McGill University; a Master's in Composition from Mills College, and a Ph.D. in Critical Studies/Experimental Practices (now called Integrative Studies) from the University of California San Diego. She was the Founder and Director of Popular Music Studies at Oregon State University from 2011-2015. She is currently the Coordinator of Contemporary Music and Research at Oregon State University and is affiliate faculty for the MAIS graduate program at OSU.

Currents performed by Dr. Chris Chapman and the OSU wind ensemble: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTPAB1ocZ60