Stuart Dempster


Stuart Dempster is a trombonist, didjeridu player, improviser, and composer.

Biography

After Dempster completed his studies at San Francisco State College, he was appointed assistant professor at the California State College at Hayward, and instructor at the San Francisco Conservatory. During this period he was also a member of the Performing Group at Mills College, and from 1962 to 1966 was first trombonist in the Oakland Symphony Orchestra.
In 1967–68, he was a Creative Associate at the State University of New York at Buffalo under Lukas Foss. While there he helped organize the first commercial recording of Terry Riley's In C, in the 1964 premiere of which he had also performed. The following year he was appointed assistant professor at the University of Washington, in Seattle, where he was promoted to full professor in 1985.
In 1971–72 he was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study at the University of Illinois, and in 1973 he was a senior Fulbright scholar to Australia. In 1979 the University of California Press published his book, The Modern Trombone: A Definition of Its Idioms. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship award in 1981.
He has commissioned and performed works by Luciano Berio, Rob du Bois, Donald Erb, Robert Erickson, Andrew Imbrie, Ernst Krenek, and Robert Suderburg. He has collaborated with former classmate Pauline Oliveros and Panaiotis including co-founding the Deep Listening Band. He commissioned Theater Piece for Trombone Player from Oliveros and choreographer Elizabeth Harris.
Dempster practices yoga and breath control including circular breathing. He is credited with introducing the didjeridu to North America.

Discography

  • In The Great Abbey of Clement VI
  • Robert Suderburg, Chamber Music III, for trombone and piano. Also with Suderburg's Chamber Music IV, for percussion ensemble; Chamber music V, for voice, string quartet, and tape. Elizabeth Suderburg, soprano; Ciompi String Quartet; University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble, cond. Charles Owen.
  • Underground Overlays from the Cistern Chapel, S. Dempster and colleagues
  • Deep Listening, Stuart Dempster, Panaiotis, & Pauline Oliveros
  • On the Boards
  • Monoliths and Dimensions
  • Lung Tree, Stuart Dempster, Lesli Dalaba, Eric Glick Rieman
  • Echoes of Syros, Stuart Dempster, Tom Heasley, Eric Glick Rieman
  • Mavericks
With Joe McPhee
  • Common Threads
With Greg Powers
  • ''Raga for the Rainy Season''

    Listening

  • featuring Dempster performing Sequenza V and General Speech and Deep Listening Band performing Nike and Roi Et
  • featuring “Morning Light” and “Didjerilayover” from Underground Overlays from the Cistern Chapel.
  • General Speech by Robert Erickson
Category:1936 births
Category:Living people
Category:American classical trombonists
Category:American male trombonists
Category:Didgeridoo players
Category:San Francisco State University alumni
Category:California State University, East Bay faculty
Category:University of Washington faculty
Category:American contemporary classical music performers
Category:Avant-garde trombonists
Category:20th-century classical trombonists
Category:20th-century American male musicians
Category:21st-century classical trombonists
Category:21st-century American male musicians