Dana Reason

Director of Popular Music Studies, Honors College,
Music History and Literature, E campus courses
School of Arts & Communication: Music
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331
Phone:541-737-4061
Fax:541-737-4268
E-mail: dana.reason@oregonstate.edu

Dana Reason is the director of Popular Music Studies at Oregon State University in the School of Arts & Communication. She is also 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 development.

Research and performance interests include: 20th century improvised and contemporary music; women composers/performers; post 1945 jazz; hip hop, film and popular music. Her research is available at: Jazz studies On-line: Columbia University, Wesleyan University Press, Musicworks, and 20th Century Music. Her music has been reviewed by Downbeat, Keyboard Magazine, Jazziz, Coda, Cadence, Musicworks and All About Jazz.

Reason studied piano with Boaz Sharon and Aleck Karis; composition with Alcides Lanza, Pauline Oliveros, and Alvin Curran, and critical and cultural music theory with George E. Lewis and Anthony Davis.

As a pianist, composer and improvisor, Reason has performed extensively throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe and can be heard on over 11 CD recordings. She has appeared at Frau Musica Nova, Banff Center for the Arts, Stanford University, San Francisco Jazz Festival, Spring Reverb, and Is that Jazz? Festival, among others. Reason was part of “The Space Between Trio” with Pauline Oliveros in the 2000s. She has performed with Mark Dresser, Joelle Leandre, Bert Turetzky, Alex Cline, Barre Philips, Fred Frith, Cecil Taylor, Lisle Ellis, and George E. Lewis, among others. Her newest album features her orignal compositions performed by: bassist Glen Moore, drummer Peter Valamis, with Reason at the piano. This will be released in the fall of 2011.

Reason holds a Bachelor of Music from McGill University; a master's in Composition from Mills College, and a Ph.D. in Musicology/Critical Studies from the University of California San Diego.

Website: danareason.com