Jon Damian

Jon in Australia

Jon Damian — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 22:28:50 +0000

The Spring 2012 Creative Workshop at Berklee!

Jon Damian — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:09:35 +0000

The Creative Workshop Ensemble at Berklee College of Music was a lot of fun this semester. I had a great Cre.W.e to work with and the highlight was the production of an opera entitled Noah’s Lonely Ark Band. The opera revolves around the ‘forgotten’ animals on the ark who didn’t have a partner. We employed the help of about ten finger puppets, with tap shoes, to play the characters. The cast consists of a lion, a pileated woodpecker, a ferret, a skunk, a fish, a penguin, a beaver and a very cute little superman puppet who portrayed Noah.

Thanks to Alex, Cole, Dan, Greg, Oren, and Scott for being such fearless music explorers this semester!

Jon Damian — Fri, 04 May 2012 18:56:20 +0000

Thank you so much for your questions concerning my books The Guitarists Guide to Composing and Improvising and The Chord Factory. Please keep those questions coming in. I especially love seeing and hearing any ideas you have inspired by the books. And I hope your chord dictionary grows big and fat with the help of the Chord Factory.

Off to Melbourne in August!

Jon Damian — Fri, 04 May 2012 18:46:33 +0000

I am excited about going to Melbourne, Australia for this coming August. I have been invited to perform and conduct workshops at NMIT. I will spend two weeks at NMIT and then will spend another two weeks exploring Australia starting with the Great Barrier Reef, birding in the tropics of the island, and then to Sydney for another four days. Please let me now if you want hook up at some point!

“Jon what are you doing?!”

Jon Damian — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 19:24:34 +0000

“Jon what are you doing with that poor Rubbertellie!!” Visitors to my website have been curious about the opening photo of myself with the Rubbertellie. This was taken during a performance of Rubbertellie Murals at Gallery 119. In this piece I perform a musical piece as well as produce a painting, in this case a 20 foot-long mural. Technicians feed the blank “canvas” between the strings and fingerboard of the Rubbertellie moving it along as I literally grab globs of acrylic paint as I play the instrument. The sounds produced by the strings, and paper, are really fun to work with. There is some footage of Rubbertellie Murals on the documentary film Heavy Rubber: 30 Years in the Life of an Instrument: the Rubbertellie.

Jon’s new book in search of publisher

Jon Damian — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:08:09 +0000

Jon is looking for a publisher for his new book. Fresh Ideas for Musicians by Jon Damian chronicles the author’s Creative Workshop at the Berklee College of Music and is for creative musicians in all endeavors. Workshop members interact with inspirations drawn from across the universe (from alphabets to zodiacs.) In Fresh Ideas, the reader is a virtual creative workshop member. The exploratory sessions are designed to help the reader get out of their own way and see and hear with fresh eyes and ears.

Jon Damian has been conducting his Creative Workshop for more than 25 years at Berklee and internationally and is acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost thinkers about guitar theory and pedagogy. He has authored several books including The Guitarists Guide to Composing and Improvising (Berklee Press/Hal Leonard: 2000) and The Chord Factory (Berklee Press/Hal Leonard: 2007)

The subject of creativity needs some fresh air and Fresh Ideas for Musicians will open both windows and minds.

Rubbertellie in Action!

Jon Damian — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 18:53:47 +0000

Having heard Jon’s Rubbertellie on Dedications: Faces and Places, his CD with Bill Frisell, folks are always curious about what the Rubbertellie actually is! What does it look like? Well there is a YouTube link that shows Rubbetellie in action with Jon playing Brother Sharpe, a cut from the Dedications CD. The concert performance was at Bishop’s University in Quebec, Canada.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXoKY1B6qFM

The Creative Workshop in Italy

Jon Damian — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:56:10 +0000

Some of my fun experiences during the Umbrian Jazz Festival can be found in an article I recently wrote for BT, an alumni magazine published by Berklee College of Music.

“A Perugian Recipe” takes a look at the people, the food and the landscape of Italy and how these elements inspired the Creative Workshop Ensembles and Master Classes I conducted as part of Berklee’s Umbria Jazz clinics.

If you are not able to get a hard copy of the magazine, here is the link for the article. Check out the pasta in the graphic!

http://www.berklee.edu/bt/222/coda.html

CD: Dedications: Faces & Places with Bill Frisell

Jon Damian — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:50:00 +0000

A fresh supply of the CD Dedications: Faces and Places is now available. Featuring Jon Damian along with Bill Frisell, Peter Kontrimas, Taylor Mclean, Bob Patton, Bob Nieske and John Voigt. The album consists of Damian compositions penned for people and places in his life. The recording has Jon on both guitar as well as his Rubbertellie. Contact Jon at jdamian@berklee.edu if you would like to get a copy of Dedications: Faces and Places.

Welcome!

Jon Damian — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:15:00 +0000

Welcome to the new Jon Damian website. To post comments on articles and pages you MUST register first!

Jon is an active international performer, composer, lecturer, clinician and author. He is currently a professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. His varied performances have ranged from Luciano Pavarotti to Bill Frisell to Howard McGhee to Johnny Cash, Leonard Bernstein, Jimmy Giuffre, Gunther Schuller. Rosemary Clooney, Linda Ronstadt The Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, The American Repertory Theater, The Boston Opera Company, The Boston Pops Orchestra under Arthur Fiedler, John Williams and Keith Lockhart, The Bolshoi Ballet, The Boston Ballet, to Sheila Jordan.

His compositions have been performed in a range of venues from the Institute of Contemporary Art, Mobius and the Berklee Performance Center and his work as performer, lecturer and clinician have taken him to Asia, South and Central Americas, Europe and Israel. Fellow clinicians have included Phil Woods, Sam Rivers, Gary Burton and Dave Liebman.

Recordings have included the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Bill Frisell, The Boston Pops Orchestra, Collage, Nova, Bob Nieske’s Wolf Soup, and The Jazz in the Classroom series. His recording “Dedications: Faces and Places” with Bill Frisell is now available.

Jon’s two books The Guitarists Guide To Composing and Improvising and The Chord Factory: Build Your Own Guitar Chord Dictionary are now available through Berklee Press and Hal Leonard Publications. A video Heavy Rubber, a documentary about one of Jon Damian’s inventions, the Rubbertellie is also now available.

Jon Damian is originally from Brooklyn, New York and some of Jon Damian’s private students have included Bill Frisell, Mark Whitfield, Kurt Rosenwinkel, James Valentine of Maroon V, Leni Stern and Wayne Krantz.

He is the Recipient of the Pro Arts Consortium Public Service Award and the Harris-Stanton Award.

Upcoming performances and workshops include Anat Cohen Friday March 30 at the Berklee Performance Center, the Jon Damian Quartet Friday April 20 at the Outpost 186 in Cambridge, MA, Jim Guttmann’s Bessarabian Breakdown at the Acton Jazz Club in Acton MA., Guest artist and lecturer at NMIT in Melbourne, Australia August 2012.