Dana Reason

Early life and career

Born in Canada, Reason began lessons on the piano at the age of 3 . Reason continued to compose throughout her primary school years, earning by age 15 an associate degree in performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

Reason started her secondary studies at Barrie Central Collegiate Institute, where she played the trombone. But, after hearing her play the piano, she was encouraged by a substitute band teacher to apply at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. Reason auditioned and was awarded a scholarship that allowed her to finish secondary school at the academy. It was during this time that she became interested in contemporary music composition, jazz and free jazz.

After graduating from Interlochen at the age of 17, Reason met with pianist Boaz Sharon from the University of Florida. Sharon flew out to Toronto to audition her, and awarded Reason a scholarship to study classical piano at the university. During her time at the university, Reason sent an audition tape to the Juilliard School, and she was invited to start lessons that summer. Reason had wanted to attend Juilliard, but instead obtained a Bachelor of Music at McGill University.

Mills College

After earning her degree at McGill, Reason attended Mills College in Oakland, CA to study composition. Her main teachers were Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Curran. Studying piano with Julie Steinberg, she also had classes with Christian Wolff, Cecil Taylor, Frederic Rzewski, and Glenn Spearman before completing her Master of Arts in Composition.

University of California, San Diego

Reason met George E. Lewis in the early 1990s at a festival in Tallahassee that featured his music. Lewis encouraged her to apply to the University of California, San Diego for a Ph.D. While at UCSD, Reason studied both classical and contemporary piano with Alex Karis, as well as improvisation with George E. Lewis, Anthony Davis and Muhal Richard Abrams. In the spring of 1999 Reason organized a two-day symposium on improvisation to complement this research, entitled "Improvising Across Borders." This event included more than a hundred participants, with 24 papers presented in concurrent sessions.

Collaborations

Reason both performed with other musicians and composers during her time at UCSD, including Lisle Ellis, and Philip Gelb. From 1998 until 2003 Reason toured extensively as part of "The Space Between Trio" featuring Pauline Oliveros on the accordion and Philip Gelb on the shakuhachi.

After giving several solo performances, Reason met bassist Dominic Duval and drummer John Heward at Montreal’s Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival in 2004, where they performed as a trio for the first time. Soon after, the trio recorded their first CD, "Revealed (Circumvention)", as the Dana Reason Trio, but the CD was not released at that time. In addition to her performances, she was commissioned by Rova Saxophone Quartet to write a composition entitled Transition in 2003, and to both improvise and interpret a 16-instrument score written by composer Sean Griffin for his project entitled "Snake River", which was presented in the Disney Concert Hall Complex in Los Angeles in the fall of 2006.

Reason is currently the Director of Popular Music at Oregon State University. She has taught there since 2008.

Discography

Videography

List of Major Festivals and Performances