Dave Wilson is a musician, composer, and ethnomusicologist. His music includes chamber, orchestral, big band, and small jazz ensemble works, and he has worked in commercial and film music as a performer, arranger, and composer.
His work in Southeastern Europe has been supported by the ACLS (American Council of Learned Societies), the American Councils of International Education, the Herb Alpert Foundation, the UCLA Graduate Division, and the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship Program (FLAS) of the US Department of Education. Related to this project have been the premier of his work at the 2014 Days of Macedonian Music New Music Festival (watch here), collaborations with DJs in the Macedonian electronic music scene, recordings with Macedonian folk music-inspired group Ljubojna, and the album On the Face Place (SkyDeck Music, 2016) by CSPS Ensemble featuring a number of his compositions for small jazz ensemble.
As a scholar, his interests include how music and sound relate to nationalism, belonging, social transformation, intangible cultural heritage, the construction of social space, and the nature of scenes. His PhD dissertation takes several cases from music scenes in Macedonia and explores how human music making makes spaces for belonging through collaborative sonic and social practices.
He released In Passing (SkyDeck Music) in 2017, an album of original music for oud and clarinet/bass clarinet duo co-composed and performed with Gabe Lavin. In 2013, his composition Springs of a Desperate Heart was performed by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the Earshot Readings in conjunction with the American Composers Orchestra and the Jazz Composers Orchestral Institute (reviewed here). In 2010 at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, he debuted Light Connected, a piece for clarinet, alto flute, cello, bass, cajon, dancer, and spoken word poet that he conceptualized and co-composed.
His collaborators in commercial and film music have included Tears for Fears, Dave Stewart (Eurhythmics), Engelbert Humperdinck, composer Mateo Messina (Juno, Thank You for Smoking), and French world music artist Jessica Fichot. His performance work has taken him to the stages of the Chicago World Music Festival, the Lotus Festival, the Guadalajara International Book Fair, the London Palladium, the Sydney Opera House, and the Araneta Colisseum, where Ali and Frazier met at the "Thrilla in Manila."
Dave is currently a Lecturer in the Music Studies Program at the New Zealand School of music at Victoria University of Wellington. He received an MA and a PhD in ethnomusicology from UCLA, and he completed his undergraduate degree in Music Education with an emphasis in saxophone at Indiana University.
His work in Southeastern Europe has been supported by the ACLS (American Council of Learned Societies), the American Councils of International Education, the Herb Alpert Foundation, the UCLA Graduate Division, and the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship Program (FLAS) of the US Department of Education. Related to this project have been the premier of his work at the 2014 Days of Macedonian Music New Music Festival (watch here), collaborations with DJs in the Macedonian electronic music scene, recordings with Macedonian folk music-inspired group Ljubojna, and the album On the Face Place (SkyDeck Music, 2016) by CSPS Ensemble featuring a number of his compositions for small jazz ensemble.
As a scholar, his interests include how music and sound relate to nationalism, belonging, social transformation, intangible cultural heritage, the construction of social space, and the nature of scenes. His PhD dissertation takes several cases from music scenes in Macedonia and explores how human music making makes spaces for belonging through collaborative sonic and social practices.
He released In Passing (SkyDeck Music) in 2017, an album of original music for oud and clarinet/bass clarinet duo co-composed and performed with Gabe Lavin. In 2013, his composition Springs of a Desperate Heart was performed by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the Earshot Readings in conjunction with the American Composers Orchestra and the Jazz Composers Orchestral Institute (reviewed here). In 2010 at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, he debuted Light Connected, a piece for clarinet, alto flute, cello, bass, cajon, dancer, and spoken word poet that he conceptualized and co-composed.
His collaborators in commercial and film music have included Tears for Fears, Dave Stewart (Eurhythmics), Engelbert Humperdinck, composer Mateo Messina (Juno, Thank You for Smoking), and French world music artist Jessica Fichot. His performance work has taken him to the stages of the Chicago World Music Festival, the Lotus Festival, the Guadalajara International Book Fair, the London Palladium, the Sydney Opera House, and the Araneta Colisseum, where Ali and Frazier met at the "Thrilla in Manila."
Dave is currently a Lecturer in the Music Studies Program at the New Zealand School of music at Victoria University of Wellington. He received an MA and a PhD in ethnomusicology from UCLA, and he completed his undergraduate degree in Music Education with an emphasis in saxophone at Indiana University.
