Dino J.A. Deane - For Leena (2018)

Lullabies For Insomniacs presents ‘For Leena’, a collection of unreleased pieces composed between 1991 & 1998 by Dino J.A. Deane for the choreography of Colleen Mulvihill.

Beginning his professional career at the age of nineteen, as a musical arranger and multi-instrumentalist (trombone, flutes, keyboards, percussion), Dino J. A. Deane worked in funk bands around Los Angeles before moving to San Francisco in the mid 1970’s, where he became involved, as an improvising artist, in the diverse communities of dramatic theater, modern dance, free jazz and punk rock.

In the early 1980’s Mr. Deane pioneered the use of live-electronics, live-looping and live-sampling in three distinct genres that heavily informed his later compositions: As a member of art-punk band Indoor Life, touring and recording with fourth world pioneer Jon Hassell and as an electro-acoustic percussionist in the Conduction orchestras of Butch Morris.

During this period Mr. Deane also worked as a sound designer for theater, with directors Sam Shepard, Julie Hebert and Christoph Marthaler. He maintained a long-term relationship in the world of modern dance with former Olympic gymnast and choreographer Colleen Mulvihill, creating and performing numerous dance and music works for her. The couple met in San Francisco in 1979 through his good friend Bruce Ackley, whom was commissioned to compose a score for one of her solo pieces. Colleen, was a member of the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company and was planning to move to New York City to set out on her own as a dancer and choreographer. Their paths crossed again in 1980 when Dino moved to NYC with Indoor Life, during this time they began a long term relationship both on and off the stage, which continues to this day.

“Mr. Deane adjusted his electronics with the glee of a villain in a science fiction epic and raised his trombone as if it were a weapon. He could have been a sorcerer and Ms. Mulvihill could have been someone lost in a realm of black magic.” The New York Times