Mark Dresser is acclaimed for composing and performing solo contrabass and ensemble music since 1972 throughout North America, Europe and the Far East. Mr. Dresser's latest working trio includes Matthias Ziegler on flutes and Denman Maroney on hyper-piano.
Mark Dresser is a virtuoso contrabass player and composer whose uncompromising voice and singular style has impressed international audiences since 1972. Not content with the traditional parameters of the contrabass in jazz and new music, Mark Dresser has developed a system of custom electro-acoustic microphones to amplify his own unmistakable vocabulary on the instrument. This vocabulary is easily recognizable in over eighty recordings, including those with other luminaries of "new” jazz composition and improvisation such as Ray Anderson, Tim Berne, Anthony Davis, Dave Douglas, Gerry Hemingway, Bob Ostertag, John Zorn and others. For nine years he performed and recorded with the Anthony Braxton Quartet with Hemingway and Marilyn Crispell.
A coterie of world-class musicians make up Mark Dresser's current performance ensembles, which showcase his compositional versatility. These include: Mark Dresser's Trio, featuring hyper-pianist Denman Maroney and multi-flutist Mathias Ziegler; Mark Dresser's Force Green featuring Dave Douglas or Herb Robertson-trumpet, Theo Bleckmann-voice; hyper-pianist Denman Maroney, Phil Haynes or Mike Sarin, drums; The Modular Ensemble, which performs his chamber music compositions and features violinists Matt Manieri and Mary Rowell, violist Marius Ungureanu, cellist Francis-Marie Uitti, Denman Maroney, and Mathias Ziegler.
Dresser has written, performed and recorded trio music for the 1919 German expressionist silent film classic, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, (Knitting Factory 1995) with Dave Douglas and Denman Maroney. He composed music for the 1929 French/Surrealist film Un Chien Andalou (1997) with keyboardist/composer Anthony Coleman and clarinetist/sax player Chris Speed.
Mark Dresser has received a commission from the prestigious Meet the Composer/Readers Digest Commissioning Grant Program for New Works for the saxophone quartet, ROVA as well as a McKim Fund in the Library of Congress for a piece for violin and piano. "Banquet" was commissioned by Swiss flute virtuoso Mathias Ziegler as well as "Althaus" by tuba virtuoso David LeClair with mixed quintet.
In addition to his own ensembles, Mark Dresser is a founding member of the string trio, Arcado, and was commissioned by the WDR Radio of Cologne, Germany in 1991 to compose "For Not the Law" for string trio and orchestra. Released on JMT, "For Three Strings and Orchestra," is the third of five CDs recorded by Arcado. The repertoire of the Double Trio, a collaboration between Arcado and the Trio du Clarinettes included Dresser's piece "Bosnia," which was commissioned by the Banliue Bleues Festival in Paris.
Mark Dresser’s current collaborative projects include C/D/E, a trio with multi-reed player Marty Ehrlich and drummer Andrew Cyrille as well as the contrabass duo, the Marks Brothers with Mark Helias. Dresser also collaborates with virtuoso cellist Frances Marie Uitti.
Mark Dresser has twice been awarded a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts and has received several grants for performer and composer including “Meet the Composer.” He holds both a Bachelor and Master of Arts from the University of California at San Diego where he studied with contrabass virtuoso Bertram Turetzky. He is also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship for advanced musical studies in Italy with noted contrabassist Franco Petracchi. Dresser has guest lectured at Juilliard, UCSD and the National Superior Conservatory of Paris. Mark Dresser makes his home in Brooklyn, New York.