Jon Rose
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Jonathan Anthony Rose (born 19 February 1951) is an Australian violinist, cellist, composer, and multimedia artist. Rose's work is centered in the
experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...
known as
free improvisation Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any general rules, instead following the intuition of its performers. The term can refer to both a technique—employed by any musician in any genre—and as a recognizable genre of ...
, where he has created large environmental multimedia works, built experimental musical instruments, and improvised violin concertos with accompanying orchestra. He has been described by Tony Mitchell as "undoubtedly the most exploratory, imaginative and iconoclastic violin player who has lived in Australia".


Early life

Born in England, Jon Rose attended
King's School, Rochester The King's School, Rochester, is a private co-educational all through day and boarding school in Rochester, Kent. It is a cathedral school and, being part of the foundation of Rochester Cathedral. The school claims to be the second oldest c ...
, where he sang in the cathedral choir and studied the violin on scholarship. He discontinued formal violin lessons at the age of 15. Rose studied and performed in a range of genres in Australia and the United Kingdom during the 1970s, including Italian club bands, country & western, bebop, and new music.


Improvising musician

As a genre,
free improvisation Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any general rules, instead following the intuition of its performers. The term can refer to both a technique—employed by any musician in any genre—and as a recognizable genre of ...
was developed by European and American musicians in the 1960s. Free improvisation is defined by its lack of rules and is built on a rejection of structural conventions like a set
musical form In music, ''form'' refers to the structure of a musical composition or musical improvisation, performance. In his book, ''Worlds of Music'', Jeff Todd Titon suggests that a number of organizational elements may determine the formal structure of a ...
, defined meter, steady
tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for 'time'; plural 'tempos', or from the Italian plural), measured in beats per minute, is the speed or pace of a given musical composition, composition, and is often also an indication of the composition ...
, well-defined
tonality Tonality is the arrangement of pitch (music), pitches and / or chord (music), chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived ''relations'', ''stabilities'', ''attractions'', and ''directionality''. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or ...
, or fixed chord changes. Performed in a small group or by an individual soloist, free improvisation is an exploration of expressive sound. Although free to follow their personal musical inclinations and preferences, free improvisers nevertheless develop a personal musical vocabulary from which to draw upon. Practitioners of free improvisation include guitarists Derek Bailey and
Fred Frith Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith (born 17 February 1949) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as a founding member of the English avant-rock group Henry ...
, as well as saxophonists Evan Parker and
John Zorn John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conducting, conductor, saxophonist, arrangement, arranger and record producer, producer who "deliberately resists category". His Avant-garde music, avant-garde and experimental music, ex ...
. Rose's work in free improvisation in Australia in the mid-1970s included his use of violin tunings and
musical temperament In musical tuning, a temperament is a tuning system that slightly compromises the pure intervals of just intonation to meet other requirements. Most modern Western musical instruments are tuned in the equal temperament system. Tempering is the p ...
along with electronics (both analog and
interactive Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but mo ...
digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...
). He has performed as a soloist or as a member of a small group of fellow improvisers, including Jim Denley, Louis Burdett, Dave Ellis, Simone De Haan, Veryan Weston and Rik Rue.


Compositions


Orchestral compositions

Rose has worked as a composer with various ensembles and organizations including Ensemble Offspring, Tura New Music, Decibel, Speak Percussion, Soundstream, the NOW now Festival, and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Some of Rose's compositions for orchestra include ''Violin Music in the Age of Shopping'' (1994-1996), which involved the recomposition of a myriad of genres for choir, string orchestra, band, soloists, and sampling (usually by Otomo Yoshihide). The project had performances in Europe, Canada, China, and Australia, and Rose co-authored a book of the same title. In ''Violin Factory'' (1999) an orchestra plays satiric string music in the context of mechanical production and reproduction. Performed in Österreichische Rundfunk Concert Hall, Vienna (1999) and at Wogarno Station in Western Australia (2001), the satire was the result of Rose's experiences at two violin factories in China. ''Charlie's Whiskers'' (2004) for string orchestra, piano, saw, and live sampling, pays tribute to composer
Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, actuary and businessman. Ives was among the earliest renowned American composers to achieve recognition on a global scale. His music was largely ignored d ...
. Rose's ''Internal Combustion'' (2008) is a concerto for amplified orchestra, solo improvised violin, and video. An accompanying video quotes Rose's previous work, such as him riding his custom-built bicycle-powered violin and a violin being played with ping pong balls. It was performed at The Berlin Philharmonic by ensemble Unitedberlin with a commission from the MaerzMusik festival. ''The Auctioneer Says'' (2012) is orchestrated for cello, viola, alto saxophone, electric bass, percussion, and video, with Rose playing an auctioneer. It was commissioned by Decibel New Music in Perth. ''Ghan Tracks'' (2014) combines multimedia performance, installation, live radio, and a documentary. Commissioned by Ensemble Offspring, it was performed by them, Speak Percussion, and actors collaborating with the Creative Audio Unit of Radio National at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Rose's ''Picnic at Broken Hill'' (2015) was commissioned by Soundstream, and uses a pitch-to-MIDI application. Rose transcribed the piece for piano as the musical contours of a pair of 1915 suicide letters read in
Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
. These were penned by a pair of cameleers accused of attacking a train of picnickers in protest of the Allied campaign at Gallipoli during the First World War. Each hand of the pianist performs a separate re-enacted letter.


Radio compositions

Rose has used the medium of live radio broadcasts to present original content influenced by historical musical figures and topics. These productions include broadcasts for radio stations such as the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia’s principal public service broadcaster. It is funded primarily by grants from the federal government and is administered by a government-appointed board of directors. The ABC is ...
(ABC), the
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
,
Westdeutscher Rundfunk (; "West German Broadcasting Cologne"), shortened to WDR (), is a German public broadcasting, public-broadcasting institution based in the States of Germany, Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia with its main office in Cologne. WDR is a const ...
(WDR),
Saarländischer Rundfunk (; "Saarland Broadcasting"), shortened to SR (), is a public broadcasting, public radio and television broadcaster serving the German States of Germany, state of Saarland. With headquarters in the Halberg Broadcasting House in Saarbrücken, SR i ...
,
Bayerischer Rundfunk (; "Bavarian Broadcasting"), shortened to BR (), is a public broadcasting, public-service radio and television broadcaster, based in Munich, capital city of the Bavaria, Free State of Bavaria in Germany. BR is a member organization of the ARD (b ...
,
Radio France Radio France () is the French national public radio broadcaster. Stations Radio France offers seven national networks: *France Inter — Radio France's "generalist media, generalist" station, featuring entertaining and informative talk mixed wi ...
, Rai Radio 3,
Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF ; , ) is the national public broadcaster of Austria. Funded from a combination of television licence fee revenue and limited on-air advertising, ORF is the dominant player in the Austrian broadcast media. Austria was the last country in ...
, and Sender Freies Berlin (SFB). * ''Paganini's Last Testimony'' (1988) for ABC, which envisions the famous violinist as a celebrity faith healer. * ''The Mozart Industry'' (1993) for Saarländischer Rundfunk, which explores the posthumous industry of Mozart. * ''The Long Sufferings of Anna Magdalena Bach'' (1998) for ABC, inspired by the life and work of J. S. Bach's second wife. * ''Skeleton in the Museum'' (2003) for ABC, a portrait of pianist/composer
Percy Grainger Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who moved to the United States in 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long and ...
that won the 2004 . * ''Syd and George'' (2008) for SFB, concerns the relationship between a lyrebird ("George") and his researcher, Syd Curtis. Lyrebirds are expert mimics, and Rose's score for string quartet draws on imitation as an organizing principle. * ''Salvado'' (2009) for BBC, which dramatizes the story of the establishment of an Aboriginal string orchestra by a Spanish priest in 1846. * ''Not Quite Cricket'' (2012) for BBC, which re-examined the first Aboriginal cricket tour to England in 1868. * ''Ghan Stories'' (20142015) for ABC, which tells of the Old Ghan railway built from Port Augusta to Alice Springs between 1878 and 1929.


Environmental works

Rose has produced a number of large-scale performances inspired by or set in outdoor environments. In ''Great Fences of Australia'' (1983), Rose bowed and recorded wire
fence A fence is a structure that encloses an area, typically outdoors, and is usually constructed from posts that are connected by boards, wire, rails or net (textile), netting. A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its ...
s throughout the Australian continent. Typically, Rose uses both the hair and stick of
cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...
and
bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...
bows to sound wire fences, which he supplements with small contact microphones attached at the meeting point of fence wire and fence post. In 2009, Rose was commissioned by
Kronos Quartet The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classical musi ...
and The
Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue Performing arts center, performing arts centre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive b ...
to build a set of four fence instruments to be played in concert. Rose then composed ''Music from 4 Fences'' for a quartet of fence wire stretched on metal frames. Rose has performed on the violin accompanied by his videos of outback fences, both those he has bowed and others he only filmed. In the 2010 film ''The Reach of Resonance'', Rose discussed how playing fences as instruments prompted him and others to consider how fences impact the environment. Rose expanded ''Great Fences of Australia'' to other locations including Bosnia, Belfast, the Golan Heights, Mexico, the United States, and Finland. In November 2006, Rose was detained and later released by
Israeli Defence Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...
while playing a part of the separation fence in
Bil'in Bil'in () is a Palestinian village located in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, west of the city of Ramallah in the central West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Bil'in had a population of 2,137 in 2017. I ...
, a
Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...
village located in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, west of the city of
Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ) is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of abov ...
in the central
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
. Other environmental projects which explore culturally significant objects include: * ''Kayak'' (2008), a paddle-powered harpsichord performance at Pier 40 in San Francisco, accompanied by Bob Ostertag in a kayak sending
accelerometer An accelerometer is a device that measures the proper acceleration of an object. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change (mathematics), rate of change of velocity) of the object relative to an observer who is in free fall (tha ...
signals to Rose acting as composer and computer operator. * ''Kite Music'' (2008), in which transmitting kites are fitted with radio video cameras and accelerometers. * ''Digger Music'' (2008), a duet for violin and mechanical
excavator Excavators are heavy equipment (construction), heavy construction equipment primarily consisting of a backhoe, boom, dipper (or stick), Bucket (machine part), bucket, and cab on a rotating platform known as the "house". The modern excavator's ...
. * ''Wreck'' (20132017), in which rusting car wrecks were converted into functional music instruments. * ''Hills Hoist'' (2014), in which a clothesline was converted into a propeller-powered wind installation. * ''Canto Cracticus'' (2016), a collaboration with ornithologist Hollis Taylor utilizing the vocalizations of the
pied butcherbird The pied butcherbird (''Cracticus nigrogularis'') is a songbird native to Australia. Described by John Gould in 1837, it is a black and white bird long with a long hooked bill. Its head and throat are black, making a distinctive hood; the Bird ...
. Performances included ''Singing Up Tyalgum'' at the 2016 Tyalgum Music Festival and ''Absolute Bird'' with recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Rose's projects where the physical activities of sports are augmented by interactive sonic compositions include ''Squash'' (1983), ''Cricket'' (1985), badminton (''Perks'' 19951998),
netball Netball is a ball sport played on a rectangular court by two teams of seven players. The primary objective is to shoot a ball through the defender's goal ring while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own. It is one of a ...
(''Team Music'' 2008, 2010, 2014), and ''Skateboard Music'' (2010).


Live performances

Rose's live performances have included
multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...
content, including text, audio, video, and interactive components. In 1998, he began using an interactive bow to modulate the parameters of video (including speed, color, and revolutions) and of sound (pitch including pitch bend, volume, timbre, duration, panning, and silence). The interactive bow manipulated a variety of sounds, from bowing and plucking to a range of electronic sounds, and to preprogrammed samples that play when the bow and violin have certain interactions. In the 1980s, Rose performed a series of marathon improvised solos. The longest continuous solo (12 hours) was part of Sound Barriers at the Ivan Dougherty Gallery at the Alexander Mackie School of Art in Sydney in 1982, followed by a ten-hour concert at New Music America in Houston in 1986. In Europe, he performed marathon concerts of 3, 5, and 6 hours. In 2006,
John Oswald (composer) John Oswald (born May 30, 1953 in Kitchener, Ontario) is a Canadian composer, saxophonist, media artist and dancer. His best known project is ''Plunderphonics'', the practice of making new music out of previously existing recordings (see sound co ...
invited Rose to improvise a solo part for the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Another violin concerto, ''Elastic Band'' (2014), was Rose's collaboration with composer Elena Kats-Chernin, conductor Ilan Volkov, and The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. ''Elastic Band'' saw repeat performances with the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna and with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Rose also curated and performed at his own festival, ''String 'Em Up'', which focused on stringed instruments and which travelled to Berlin (1998), Rotterdam (1999), New York City (2000), and Paris (2002). His multimedia performance works include: * ''Pannikin'' (2005) featured a selection of soloists from Australia Ad Lib. Pannikin showcased a singing dingo, a chainsaw orchestra, a bowed saw orchestra, a livestock auctioneer, a virtuoso of whip techniques, and a performer who simultaneously hums and whistles. * ''Pursuit'' (20092013), where Rose utilized a mobile bicycle-powered orchestra of regular and custom-built instruments along with tennis racquets, ping pong balls, buckets, wine bottles, and a kitchen sink, transforming these items into unique music machines. * ''Sonic Ball'' (2015) at the inaugural opening celebrations of the performing arts venue National Sawdust in Brooklyn, New York. For this project, as the audience plays with a huge white ball, the ball's movements (pushing, throwing, rolling) power and transmit an interactive electronic system, producing a sonic outcome.


Instrument builder

Rose's improvisational work led to his building of custom instruments. As a
luthier A luthier ( ; ) is a craftsperson who builds or repairs string instruments. Etymology The word ' is originally French and comes from ''luth'', the French word for "lute". The term was originally used for makers of lutes, but it came to be ...
, Rose has built new string instruments and modified conventional ones, as well as repurposed other everyday items. His early instrument building in the 1970s and 1980s incorporated wind, water, and wheels to activate and/or modulate the sound of an array of string types, from violin gut strings to fence wire. This period of instrument building produced over 20 instruments known as the Relative Violins, deconstructed instruments like Rose's double-piston triple-necked wheeling violin, his amplified 19-string tenor cello, which was built in 1981, and his Whipolin, a seven-string disembowelled cello fitted with wheels that are bowed similarly to a
hurdy-gurdy The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-turned crank, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin (or nyckelharpa) bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar ...
. These fully functional, modified instruments have also been displayed as contemporary sculptures, many of them seen in The Rosenberg Museum, a travelling exhibition that also displays Rose's collection of 800+ violins and violin-related objects. From 1985, Rose worked in conjunction with engineers at the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music ( STEIM) in Amsterdam to develop a series of interactive
MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...
bows (and amplified bows) under the title ''Hyperstring Project''. He uses various controllers in his MIDI bows, mounted on both his wrist and on the bows themselves. One controller measures bow pressure and another measures bow arm movement and speed, while foot pedals are played by both feet independently. In this way, Rose is able to simultaneously play multiple lines of melodies and
polyrhythm Polyrhythm () is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. The rhythmic layers may be the basis of an entire piece of music (cross-rh ...
s by means of different controllers which measure the physicality of his high speed improvisation.


Reception

''New York Times'' music critic Stephen Holden observed the wide range of Rose's improvisations, from late Romantic tonal solos to freeform explorations. Rose's 27 March 1986 performance at New York City's Experimental Intermedia Foundation featured Super 8 films that Rose shot in the Australian outback consisting of "rapid jump-cut editing and sped-up footage", which Holden described as "the most audacious music improvisations" and "the evening's most ambitious work". Writing about Rose's CD ''Hyperstring'' in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', John L. Walters similarly observed how Rose's violin technique and technological experiments seem to escape any clear musical categories in "a violin-shaped world that is all his own, shot through with wild humour". "Jon Rose is the Thomas Edison of the vibrating string", wrote Ken Waxman in ''Jazzword''. According to Graham Strahle, Rose has established a reputation as a musical
larrikin Larrikin is an Australian English term meaning "a mischievous young person, an uncultivated, rowdy but good-hearted person", or "a person who acts with apparent disregard for social or political conventions". In the 19th and early 20th centurie ...
, observing that Rose has been "pushing boundaries in improvisation and technology for years as a violinist, composer and general musical provocateur, coming up with such wry inventions as the interactive MIDI violin bow and Fence Project – they rival Percy Grainger’s wacky Kangaroo Pouch Tone Tool for unbridled creativity." Gail Priest from '' RealTime'' described Rose's embrace of the Australian landscape in his various musical activities as "Australia made extraordinary". In his review of the CD ''Futch'' for ''The Squid's Ear'', Kurt Gottschalk called Rose "a tireless conceptualist, making music out of political borders and rewriting economics and history like a viol-centric Marco Polo".


Don Banks Music Award

The Don Banks Music Award was established in 1984 to publicly honour a senior artist of high distinction who has made an outstanding and sustained contribution to music in Australia. It was founded by the
Australia Council Creative Australia, formerly known as the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. The council was announ ...
in honour of Don Banks, Australian composer, performer and the first chair of its music board. , - , 2012 , Jon Rose , Don Banks Music Award , , -


Residencies

In 2006, Rose was awarded the
David Tudor David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music. Life and career Tudor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefa ...
Composer-in-Residence at
Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California is part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was relocated to Oakland in ...
and completed a lecture and concert tour of various
University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...
system campuses that same year. In 2007, Rose was awarded a one-year Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address residency by the
Australia Council for the Arts Creative Australia, formerly known as the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. The council was announ ...
.


Author

Rose has authored works which have been published as the following: * * * *


Discography


References


External links


Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rose, Jon 1951 births Jazz cellists Australian jazz violinists Living people Australian cellists Australian violinists Male violinists Australian male composers Australian composers Inventors of musical instruments 21st-century cellists 21st-century Australian violinists 21st-century Australian male musicians 21st-century Australian musicians Australian male jazz musicians Intakt Records artists