Tom Heasley

TOM HEASLEY BIO

The unique musical voice of Tom Heasley is heard internationally as composer, performer and recording artist. At live performances and in recordings, Heasley gathers the warp and woof of tuba, didjeridu, throat-singing, looping and electronics and weaves them into a musical tapestry of great originality and power. He creates “a rich and sonorous aural experience that flies in the face of all the dumb cliches about what tuba music is…” A true "father of invention", Heasley has turned his Achilles' heel - the tuba - into a force majeure.
With his first solo CD, WHERE THE EARTH MEETS THE SKY (Hypnos 2001), Tom Heasley launched the art of tuba-playing into the twenty first century. He continued to liberate the tuba – one of the world’s most under-valued instrument - with ON THE SENSATIONS OF TONE (Innova 2002.) His third solo offering, DESERT TRIPTYCH (Farfield Records, 2003), released by Southampton, England-based Farfield Records, is his first to feature the didjeridu, along with voice and electronics.
From Silicon Valley to Siberia, Tom Heasley’s music has been featured on radio programs throughout the world, such as National Public Radio, Public Radio International, Carl Stone’s Ears Wide Open, John Schaefer’s New Sounds (WNYC), Kalvos and Damian’s New Music Bazaar, John Diliberto's Echoes, and BBC Radio's Mixing It and Late Junction. His music speaks to a diverse audience, from students at Oberlin conservatory to inmates of San Quentin prison. His appearance at festivals and venues include CEAIT, Sonic Circuits, The Gathering, The Knitting Factory, CBGBs, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
The winner of an Artist Fellowship in Musical Composition from the Arts Council of Silicon Valley, Heasley’s work has also been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, American Composers Forum, Meet The Composer, McKnight Foundation and ASCAP. In addition to his solo recordings, Tom has recorded for Tzadik, Leo, Hypnos, Innova, Music and Arts, New Albion, Old Gold and Farfield Records and has enjoyed collaborations with many artists of note, including Charlie Haden, Wadada Leo Smith, Malcolm Mooney (of Can), Eugene Chadbourne, Deep Listening Band, Gunther Hampel, Jeanne Lee, Bobby Bradford, John Carter, Alvin Curran, Don Preston, Daniel Lentz, Vinny Golia, Joe Catalano, Pauline Oliveros, David Gamper, the Merce Cunningham Dance Co., Lois V Vierk, Frederic Rzewski, Glenn Spearman, Gerry Hemingway, Stuart Dempster, Anne LeBaron, Gerry Hemingway, Jonathan Harvey and most recently, Toss Panos.
In 2005, with the support of Meet The Composer, Heasley produced a concert series at Highways in Santa Monica, CA, where he premiered his latest work for tuba, voice and electronics, Dream of Zatoichi. He was also a featured musician - performing on tuba, didjeridu and voice, as well as creating real-time loops - for the workshop production of Anne LeBaron’s new opera WET.
In late 2006, Heasley recorded a new album utilizing drums in his ambient music for the first time. He was joined by master percussionist/drummer Toss Panos.
In 2007, Heasley branched out from his ambient guise to sit in with the Michael Landau Band on a Saturday night at the world famous Baked Potato. This gave rise to an invitation for Heasley to record overdubs on a Biff Johnson jazz/rock CD project, including performing as The Thing in a track that pays tribute to the Dimitri Tiomkin soundtrack for the 1951 classic sci-fi film. He returned to teach at the California State Summer School of the Arts following his 2006 visit and in September launched his record label, Full Bleed Music. His first release was Passages, with drummer Toss Panos (a longtime collaborator with Michael Landau, Andy Summers, Robben Ford, Mike Keneally and many others). Passages received - and continues to receive - much critical acclaim and airplay. Following the release of Passages, Heasley lectured and performed at the Windward School in West Los Angeles, before going on a short hiatus toward the end of 2007.
As 2008 rolls along, Passages continues to be written about, featured and broadcast, from John Schaffer's New Sounds in New York City to the BBC in London and everywhere there are radios and webcasts to be heard. In the spring, Heasley was invited by trombonist Stuart Dempster to join him in several days of recording in the world famous 2 million gallon (and 45-second reverb!) Fort Worden Cistern in Port Townsend, Washington. The cistern is famous largely due to Dempster's previous recordings made there, both his solo release, 'Undergound Overlays in the Cistern Chapel' on New Albion and several Deep Listening Band recordings with Pauline Oliveros. Heasley once again taught at CSSSA at CalArts (along with Wayne Kramer of MC5, the only non-CalArts faculty-person to do so). While in Washington to record in the cistern Heasley and Dempster will also participate in a special quartet performance and recording - also in the cistern - John Cage's 'Atlas Eclipticalis'. Heasley and Dempster will continue their collaborative efforts in the SF Bay Area with Eric Glick Rieman joining the fray in September at 21 Grand in Oakland. Heasley plans to release material from the cistern recordings on Full Bleed Music later in 2008. Heasley is currently working on a book related to contemporary tuba technique with special emphasis on multiphonics to be published sometime in 2009.
In January of 2009 Heasley will return to the Bay Area for a solo concert as part of the Trinity Chamber Concerts series in Berkeley and will once again teach summer school at CalArts.
For bookings contact [email protected] For press information or to purchase CDs: www.tomheasley.com.

WHAT LISTENERS ARE SAYING

"Juicy. Super Coolio...." - Michael Landau
"I love Tom's music; if you don't go to hear him whenya can, well....your loss!" David Torn/splattercell"Tom Heasley's mesmerizing loop-based, ambient tuba playing brings an ethereal beauty from the underrated instrument." Joseph Woodard, L.A. Times"Tom's music evokes deep meditative states of awareness." Ramon Sender, Composer/Author"Wow! No -- that doesn't really capture it. Let me try again. Stunning! Not quite right yet. One last try: Unique, gorgeous, and moving. No kidding, Mr. Heasley. I listen to a LOT of music and what you have been creating here is something both unique and beautiful and even profound. I often work with someone you may know of (Mark Isham) who, I'm quite sure, would respond to your work (if he hasn't already!) in the same way I did. Wonderful, wonderful, work. Thank you.” Robert Harmon"....a rich and sonorous aural experience that flies in the face of all the dumb cliches about what tuba music is." Richard Zvonar, Ph.D., Composer
"I just finished listening to "Where the Earth Meets the Sky" out on my deck, watching the sun set over the mountains, I now know that even a tuba can spill magic into the night air." SK, Golden, CO
"The sounds totally consume you…" Shawn Atkins, Filmmaker, NYC"....in a rare pattern, I have actually listened to the CD three times! …your CD [Where the Earth Meets the Sky] definitely has lots to offer." Stuart Dempster, sound gatherer/ composer/trombonist (Deep Listening Band)/professor emeritus, Washington State University"The music...was transporting. I listened over and over. .." Anne LeBaron, composer/harpist/teacher/author
"Rich and powerful, long delays and reverbs, nuanced overtones and textural details…" Gerry Hemingway, drummer/composer"It really was ravishingly beautiful and meditative…" Sherry Goodman, Director of Education Programs, UC Berkeley Art Museum"I've listened to it three times now … 'Monterey Bay' is some of the best 'ambient' music I have ever heard. I will, of course, order a copy for our library and recommend it to my students." - John Turk, tuba soloist/professor, Youngstown State University"This CD transcends the curiosity factor of its odd instrumentation and stands as a strong meditative statement, immersing the listener so deeply, that one never thinks of an oompah band." Jeff Towne, Echoes Radio/New Age Voice"Anyone who enjoyed the 'Deep Listening' releases will love this one....clearly this guy has chops...." Gordon Danis, NY"Put aside any preconceptions you may have about the tuba as an unlikely instrument for beautiful, restrained ambience." Mike Griffin, Hypnos founder
REVIEWSDESERT TRYPTICH (Farfield, 2005)
*Tom Heasley is a classically trained tubist who has worked in any number of musical modes and contexts. Best known for his solo offerings, he has garnered international praise for using minimal instrumentation to form expansive works of rich, natural ambience and flow. Desert Triptych is Heasley's third outing, and - following the wandering tuba manipulations of Where the Earth Meets the Sky (2001) and On the Sensations of Tone (2002) - sees the Los Angeles-based composer and performer traverse some of his most abstracted and sensory musical terrains to date. Over three extended pieces, Heasley creates a dense span of vocal and instrumental drones - utilizing loops and delays to accentuate the whirring organics of his didgeridu, vocal and electronic interface. Balancing a strong compositional awareness with a loose improvisational sensibility, Heasley works to develop texture and intonation, fading sinister vocal wails into pristine, angelic hymns. Leaving his tuba in the dust, he has taken his works to yet another new and distinct echelon. Desert Triptych is a record of engaging tactility and place - a record which buzzes with both the visceral and the considered. – Reviewed by Dan Rule for Cyclic Defrost, Issue 013 (March 2006)
*Tom Heasley introduced the most unlikely of terms - the ambient tuba - to the music world in 2001. His second release also featured that odd and juxtaposed duo. Desert Triptych is a set of live recordings from two shows in the Big Apple in 2003. The music features Tom on the didgeridu, voice and electronics. (That means that he processed the spit out of everything!) The didg is a great drone instrument and Tom embraces that trait deeply. He surrounds those drones with vocal loops that he has created in real time - on the fly, as it were. He mixed as he performed and processed as he mixed. The result is one huge soundscape in three stages. The track titles - "Joshua Tree", "Solitude" and "29 Palms" - reflect a spot in the desert where that solitude is 22 miles from 29 Palms and 14 miles from Joshua Tree. The music evokes imagery of a nomad in the desert seeking respite and refuge from the grinds of civilization. This remarkable CD is essential and belongs in any ambient collection. - Reviewed by Jim Brenholts for Ambient Visions
*This release from 2005 and features 67 minutes of arid ambience. Heasley's chosen instruments for these live recordings are: didjeridu, voice and electronics. He remarkably captures the milieu of hot desert landscapes with these haunting electronic textures and elongated wind notes laced with ethereal vocal effects. Delivered with pensive constancy, the didjeridu tones achieve a solidity of airiness, dense yet nearly intangible. These seamless harmonics waft with soothing determination, unhurried and confident of their own sedative qualities. The mood generated is one of intense sparseness, unfettered by beats or pulsations. Notes stretch out with infinite intention, reaching far beyond mortal perceptions, delving deep into psychic terrain. The voices utilized are equally as ethereal and elusive, comprising no syllables or communicative content other than a general ease. Severely subtle changes in tone create an eerie progression from one passage to the next. Meanwhile, the electronics occupy the imperceptible spaces between these other rarefied elements, strengthening the soundscape's absolute serenity. Spectral rises and descents are conducted almost in secrecy, sneaking past the audience's cognitive notice and working primarily on the subconscious. This recording was mixed and mastered by Robert Rich. - SonicCuriousity.com
*Yes, the same Tom Heasley who amazed us with his ambient tuba recordings just a few years ago is back with meditations using the didgeridu, electronics and voice. Having visited Palm Springs for the first time earlier this year, I can relate to the open desert as revealed through these three long passages. The rich depth of field drone on "Joshua Tree" is pure mind-meld, like a levitating field of raw sound. In the distance you hear the ghosts of wild coyotes howling in the faded striations of a latter day painting by J.M.W. Turner. The way this live recording (2003) develops is out of its vibrating centeredness, outwardly parting with rhythmic layers that are so subtle, like the first cool breeze after a blistering humid day. "Solitude" seesaws in slow motion, ripped from the cord in the sky and floating towards a seemingly endless landing, guided by voices reminiscent of monk chant. I find the dense simplicity of the … the didgeridu is more like the simple beauty of a flower that is hard not to get instantly… This depicts Heasley as a multifaceted instrumentalist who has created his own hi-fi/sci-fi without the trappings and kitsch -- quite mystical and expansive. - TJ Norris, Igloo Magazine
*Imagine moving beneath vast cavernous canyons while listening to intonations reverberate endlessly between titanic stone walls, then one may approximate the sensation of [listening to] Desert Triptych. Layers of distant, wailing human voices create an eerie sensation as a ghost-like chorus form an ether of sound. Atop the ether is Tom Heasley throat-singing in the aboriginal tradition accompanied by the continuous murmur of the didgeridu. Heasley has brought his voice to previous ambient excursions and each time he instills a delightful shiver, Desert Triptych being no exception. The sustained vocalizations evoke all sorts of religious analogies such as the wailing of the muezzin for the call to prayer, a chorus of churchgoers singing mass or rabbis reciting the Talmud. The faith-based analogies are relevant because Desert Triptych is, in fact, three meditations for voice, didgeridu and electronics. Each of the three is long in duration, one track spanning as much as a half-hour, providing the expanse for the meditational tone of the album. Conversely, the desert suggested also serves as a good analogy as these pieces are austere, spacious and uncluttered, rippled only by the undulation of voices and instrumentation. As such, the record offers an intense audio journey where it is easy to get lost in the resonating canyons of sound or the shapeless desert of drones. - I. Khider, Audio Verite
*This is a collection of three live performances recorded in 2003 with didgeridu, voice and electronics. Rumbling didgeridu and long suspenseful drones evoke the supernatural feeling of being lost out in the desert, on a hallucinogenic vision quest. The wordless overtone vocals blend perfectly, disembodied spirits trapped in the shimmering heat waves. Ancient and elemental forces assemble to mesmerize the listener. Mixed and mastered by Robert Rich, the sound quality is top notch. There is no applause or room noise to give it away as live, or to detract from the deep atmospheres and stellar performance of Heasley. Hypnotic and enchanting, this disc is highly recommended for inward journeys or meditation. - Dodds Wiley, Ambient.us
To purchase CDs: www.tomheasley.com.

ON THE SENSATIONS OF TONE (Innova, 2002)

*TEXT. – Author, Source.
To purchase CDs: www.tomheasley.com.

WHERE THE EARTH MEETS THE SKY (Hypnos, 2001)

*TEXT. – Author, Source.
To purchase CDs: www.tomheasley.com.