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About

"When composer Philip Glass claimed 'music is a place,' he may as well have been describing [2018] Headlands Artist in residence Dina Maccabee’s solo musical explorations. Maccabee creates vast, satisfying sonic geographies and atmospheres, with signposts marked in mystery, yearning, and unexpected detours... Using what’s at hand—her viola, violin, voice, and electronics—Maccabee sends us on our ways." – Headlands Center for the Arts

 

My current interests include composing music for vocal ensembles, whether at a professional, boundary pushing level, as with Ramon & Jessica's Roses are Blue, a full length story book for 6 voices a cappella, or for group participation by singers at any level, as with Haiku Rounds and other new "freeform canon" pieces. I also continue to write and play personal songs using guitar and viola as accompaniment. 

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My eclectic musical life story and a complicated relationship with music production technologies come together in my work as a composer for broadcast media. Hysterical, the limited podcast series by Pineapple Street Studies / Wondery for which I composed and recorded the original score, has received numerous nominations and awards. In addition to podcasts, I have also scored a range of live theater and dance productions, including Natural Acts by Perel and Sweet Land, the Musical, which premiered in May 2017 at History Theatre in St. Paul, MN. 

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I performed from 2015 - 2019 as a violist and vocalist for international tours with respected songwriter Julia Holter, and I have also performed and toured extensively since 2003 with a range of artists including Carla Bozulich, Vienna Teng, and Beth Custer, as well as my own collaborations Ramon & Jessica and Real Vocal String Quartet. I have performed solo or as bandleader throughout the U.S. since 2010, and in addition to many collaborations I have release four albums of original music: Who Do You Suppose You Are? (Contraphonic, 2010), Songs 4 Violin + Voice (2012), The World is in the Work (August 2017), and The Sharpening Machine (Geomancy, 2019.)

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I have received artistic support from Opera America, New Music USA, Puffin Foundation, Meet the Composer, and San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music, and I have been artist in residence at Headlands Center for the Arts and Byrdcliffe Colony. I graduated from the Wesleyan University M.A. program in Composition 2015.

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photo by Szymon Cieslak

CV

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Dina Maccabee

Versatile composer, classically trained violist, and vocalist with a diverse catalog of creative work, including theatre scoring and sound design, instrumental performance and arrangement, songwriting, interdisciplinary sound art, music recording and production.

   
Education
2015    Wesleyan University M.A. (Music Composition)
2002   University of Michigan B.Music (Viola) and B.A. (History)
   

Grants and Awards    

  • Opera America Discovery Grants, 2024

  • San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music Musical Grant Program,
    2012 and 2015

  • Meet the Composer Award, 2012

  • Isadora Duncan Award nominee, 2012


Selected Works

  • Still Life / Group Loops / Haiku Rounds - 2018 - 2024
    Songs in free canon form for mixed vocal ensemble with improvisation techniques

  • A Meeting that Never Took Place - 2021    
    Sound design and score for contemporary Berlin dance production with binaural headphone implementation; premiered at Lake Studios, Berlin

  • WiiMote Lectures - 2021    
    Lecture performance with Max Patches for musical improvisation with Wii-Motes. Also presented at Ponderosa to allow dancers to control sound with movement

  • Trashghan 2 - 2022    
    Sound costume and interactive solo performance for the interdisciplinary series Women Between Arts at the New School Glass Box Theater

  • Roses are Blue - Workshops  - 2015 and 2017
    Initial development of scenic song cycle for 6 voices and narrator based on the children's book by Gertrude Stein, The World is Round

  • Sweet Land, the Musical - 2017
    History Theater / Buffalo Gal Productions, Minnesota, USA. Original score for a musical theatre production written and directed by an all-female creative team

  • Trashghan 1 - 2015
    Acoustic "Instruments" made from found materials for "autonomous sensory meridian response" YouTube artists

  • The Observer’s Book of Weather and Shawnee - 2015
    For four voices SATB; premiere by New York Virtuoso Singers

  • Song-O-Phone  - 2015
    Collaborative musical recording game of telephone including 30 artists

  • In the Time  - 2015
    A cappella duo vocal score for contemporary ballet commissioned by Amy Seiwert’s Imagery, ODC, San Francisco, with Jesse Olsen Bay

   
Selected Releases

 

Dina Maccabee

 

  • The Sharpening Machine (Geomancy)

  • The Work is in the World

  • The World is in the Work

  • Songs for Violin and Voice

  • Land So Sweet: Songs from Sweet Land, the Musical

  • Who do You Suppose You Are (Antephonic)

 

ramon & jessica

  • Sing Along with Ramon & Jessica

  • Fly South (Porto Franco)

  • In the Time

  • Handyman's Honeymoon

  • Ramon & Jessica


Artist Residencies

2022   Mousonturm, Frankfurt: Collaborative residency with Berlin-based performance artist, Perel

2021, 2022   Ponderosa, Stolzenhagen: Self-guided residency

2018   Headlands Center for the Arts, California, USA: Artist in Residence

2016   Convento de Mertola, Portugal: Self-guided residency

2012    Byrdcliffe Colony, Woodstock, New York, USA: Artist in Residence


Composer for narrative media and performance

Creation of original scores and sound design for podcast, film, contemporary theatre, musical theater and dance for productions in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, Minnesota, and Germany
 

Performing instrumentalist and vocalist

Violinist, singer and improviser with looping and electronics as soloist and in collaboration; Performer and recording artist for international tours and albums with Julia Holter, Jewlia Eisenberg, Carla Kihlstedt, Ghost Train Orchestra, Red Room Orchestra and many others; co-founded creative projects such as Lovers' Almanac, Ramon & Jessica, Real Vocal String Quartet, Carolyna Picknick, Lala Laranja, Guts & Buttons, and others
 

Songwriter / Producer / Arranger

Solo and collaborative albums of acoustic, chamber music, experimental and pop music, released on the record labels Geomancy, Porto Franco and Antephonic  
       

Selected Recording Credits

Julia Holter – Aviary, In The Same Room
Tune-Yards – I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life
Feist – Metals
Loma – How will I live without a body?

Ben Babbitt – Paris Window Original Score
Never Enough Hope – The Gift Economy,  The Gravity Of Our Commitment
Aaron Novik – Floating World Vol. 1, Frowny Frown, Secrets Of Secrets
Carla Kihlstedt & Rafael Osés  - Necessary Monsters
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down – We The Common
Beats Antique – Blind Threshold, Elektrafone
Thao & Mirah – Thao & Mirah
Adam Levy – The Heart Collector
Carla Bozulich – I'm Gonna Stop Killing
The Velvet Teen – Elysium
Vetiver – To Find Me Gone
Vienna Teng – Dreaming Through The Noise
Evie Ladin Band – Evie Ladin Band
The Nice Guy Trio – Sidewalks And Alleys / Waking Music
Silian Rail – (acoustic music)
The Be Good Tanyas – Blue Horse
Shearwater – The Great Awakening
Elizabeth Goodfellow – Terror And Trust, Silly Sun
Geographer – Ghost Modern
Lisa Mezzacappa – Glorious Ravage
Eric Kuhn – Music For Film, Volume Two
Rykarda Parasol – Tuesday Morning
Bart Davenport – Episodes
Trigger (64) + Dina Maccabee – Trigger + 1
Howard Wiley And The Angola Project – 12 Gates To The City

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