"I remember spending long hours alone in my room as a fourth-grader composing and improvising with my clarinet. Composing and improvising have played major roles in defining who I am, whether as a high-school student playing in all-city orchestra, in rock bands, or as a post-doctoral student touring throughout the United States as lead alto saxophonist with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra (conducted by Buddy Morrow). From 1978-85 I was an Assistant Professor of Music at Williams College (Williamstown, MA), and since 1985 I have taught at The College of William and Mary where I am currently an Associate Professor of Music and teach electronic music, music theory, composition, music cognition, topics in jazz history, and the Workshop in Black Expressive Culture. I've always wanted the jazz-influenced, intuitive, and divergent aspects of my mind to work synergistically with the more systematic, convergent, and structuralist aspects. Recent efforts along these lines have led me to study the shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute). This is a highly sturctured performance tradition that combines improvisation and the memorization of a time-honored and extremely complex literature as a form of meditation. My collaborative efforts with William and Mary colleagues Dr. Hermine Pinson (English, Black Studies) and Dr. Joanne Braxton (American Studies, Black Studies) have also been valuable in the quest to reconcile my love of vernacular and high-art traditions while at the same time musically addressing important issues of race and class."

Dan Gutwein was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1951. He is an Associate Professor of Music at The College of William and Mary where he teaches electronic music, music theory, composition, music cognition, topics in jazz history, and the Workshop in Black Expressive Culture. His compositional interests are split between writing chamber music and electronic music. Recent chamber works include DownsideUp - two movements for saxophone quartet (2001), Siesta Moon (2000)- for soprano and chamber ensemble, commissioned by Currents, the new music ensemble in residence at the University of Richmond, and Tango Magnetism (1998) for alto saxophone and audio CD. Recent electronic works include the electronic score to Deep River (2000), a multimedia play in three acts based upon the trans-Atlantic journeys of African slaves, written by colleague and play-write Joanne Braxton, Hush Little Baby (2000), Blowin' Bamboo (2000), and Four Fofs a'Funking (1998), Computer code published in The Csound Book, MIT Press 2000). He has also collaborated William and Mary colleague and poet/singer Hermine Pinson to produce other live-performed and improvised electronic works such as Marvin's Lament (1993) and Southland (1995). In addition to writing electronic music, he has also written several artificial intelligence computer-music programs. In addition to works for solo voice and solo orchestral instruments, chamber ensemble, orchestra, he has also composed portions of a multimedia opera, portions of which appear on Owl Recording, Inc. (OWL33) "New Music for Synclavier II Digital Music System: Prelude to Act I, and Kidsromp Fantasia from the opera "With Honor and With Dignity". His music is available in print from Dorn Publications and Arizona University Records, on LP from Owl Records, and on CD from Arizona University Records. He holds a Masters and Doctorate in music composition from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music where he studied composition with T. Scott Huston, Norman Dinerstein, Paul M Palombo, and Lukas Foss.