JON ROSE

Jonathan Anthony Rose (born 19 February 1951) is an Australian violinist, cellist, composer, and multimedia artist. Born in England, Jon Rose attended King's School, Rochester, 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.

Rose's work in free improvisation in Australia in the mid-1970s included his use of violin tunings and musical temperament along with electronics (both analog and interactive digital). 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.

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. 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. 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.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Rose