Bassoonist Dana Jessen (b. 1983) is a versatile musician with a concentration in contemporary and improvised music. Focused on expanding the role of the bassoon outside traditional settings, Dana has collaborated with composers, improvisers, visual artists, poets, filmmakers and chamber musicians around the world. Her strong ambitions to explore jazz and creative improvisation have led to performances with guitarist Joe Morris, saxophonist Michael Moore and pianist/composer Anthony Coleman. She has performed at concert venues and music festivals throughout the United States and Europe including New York City’s The Stone, Berlin's Universität der Künste, Boston's Jordan Hall, Baltimore's Contemporary Museum, Amsterdam's World Minimal Music Festival, and the U.K.'s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
Dana is the co-founder of rare degree, a trio with saxophonist Michael Straus and turntablist DJ Dubble8. The ensemble performs original music and hybrid arrangements alongside experimental video. Past concerts include appearances at Chicago's Heaven Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.’s Artomatic Festival, East Lansing’s (SCENE) Metrospace, Boston’s Lilypad, Ann Arbor’s Canterbury House Concert Series, New Hampshire's Franklin Pierce College and the Boston CyberArt’s Festival. In March of 2009 the trio teamed up with visual artist Sarah Buckius on an evening length collaborative show at the Musicbox Club in Lisbon, Portugal.
Dana's ongoing exploration and experimentation of new sound possibilities developed into a deep interest in composition. She has written acoustic and electroacoustic music, with a common element of improvisation. Her recent compositions, Storm Scenes for two soprano saxophones and sound samples and In Flux for bassoon, soprano saxophone and sound samples, include an electronic component that she created by recording her own sounds and layering them into an atmospheric backdrop. Playing the role of composer-performer, Dana continues to explore new performance techniques as a bassoonist while creating adventurous new ways to communicate with audiences through composition.
An active performer of new music, Dana has played with the Callithumpian Consort, Mobtown Modern, Harvard Group for New Music, and Anthony Coleman’s Retake Iowa. As an orchestral musician, she has held positions with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, Louisiana Sinfonietta and has performed with the Kristiansand Symphony (Norway), Toledo Symphony, New Bedford Symphony, Atlantic Symphony and Acadiana Symphony (Louisiana) Orchestras. She has attended the Impuls Contemporary Music Festival in Graz, Austria along with the Sarasota, Brevard, and Colorado College Summer Music Festivals.
Dana holds a M.M. with academic honors from the New England Conservatory of Music and a B.M. from Louisiana State University. She is the recent recipient of a 2008 - 2009 J. William Fulbright Fellowship for studies in Amsterdam where she continues to make her home as an HSP Huygens Foundation Fellow.