David Gunn

	David Gunn

	co-host of Kalvos & Damian

	David Ross Gunn began his musical training at Settlement Music School in Philadelphia, studying piano and percussion. He later graduated from The Ohio State University with a degree in music composition. His collegiate tunes-such as "Sonaga (sic) for 2nd French Horn, Piano & Page Turner"-mirrored those of Peter Schickele's P.D.Q. Bach, and sight gags, much to the chagrin of the university, prevailed. Subsequent works often maintained a sense of humor, but added rhythmic complexity, melodic quirks, and a more gnarly compositional structure.
In 1992 the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble (VCME) commissioned "A Song, a Dance and a Spizder" (sic) from Gunn for the New Music Across America series. Since then, the ensemble has performed his music dozens of times in concert and on public radio. In 1997-98, VCME recorded a CD of 16 of his compositions entitled "Somewhere East of Topeka" (which is where, Gunn claims, the muffler once fell off of his car). Albany Records released the CD in January 2003.
Last autumn, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra commissioned and performed his percussion concerto, "A Tangoed Web," in ten concerts across the state to great acclaim. A year earlier, the Vermont Youth Orchestra commissioned "Urban Renewaltz" to open its Elley-Long Music Center, again generating whoops of approval. In March 2003, the Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus said of a performance at the Barre Opera House of "400 owls attempting to outwit a giant badger in the rain" for piano and clarinet that it "sort of sounds like that, only better." A performance of "Quibbling With Quokkas," commissioned by Essential Music, is optimistically imminent. On a recent Sunday night, he presented Ethel ("not-a-quartet-but-a-band") with a new string quartet entitled "Incandescendence." Currently in progress are works for the University of Vermont Percussion Ensemble, for three theremins, for solo piano, and for solo flute. This just in: also a tune for bassoon quartet. Gunn has also written for the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra, Onion River Chorus, Bayley-Hazen Singers, Social Band and way too many pick-up groups.
Gunn currently co-hosts the award-winning (2000 ASCAP Deems Taylor Internet Award) weekly radio show, Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar, now in its ninth year. In 2001, he co-organized the Ought-One Festival of NonPop, a new music extravaganza of 37 concerts in Montpelier featuring 110 composers and performers from around the world.
Besides his composer and radio show co-host personas, Gunn is also a writer, humorist, and was, until this very moment, covert emissary from the planet Zombocartumia in the Crab Nebula. He lives simultaneously in Barre, Vermont and in hope of, in order, peace on earth, good will towards men, and a pile of cash in the bank.
http://kalvos.org/gunnd.html

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