Very early on, David Shea set out to make music with all sorts of instruments. After his beginnings as a clarinettist in groups with varied styles – blues, punk, rap, gospel, folk, jazz – he started studying musicology and composition at the Indianapolis School of Performing Arts in 1982 and then familiarised himself with Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Iannis Xenakis and the Fluxus movement as a student at the Oberlin Conservatory in 1984. After moving to New York, he undertook a variety of activities, working as a DJ in the clubs with solo vocal or record improvisations and composing music for classical and contemporary ensembles. He became known mainly through his decade-long (1986-1996) collaboration with John Zorn, one of the leading figures of the New York downtown alternative scene (which also included Anthony Coleman, Marc Ribot, Zeena Parkins, Jim Pugliese, David Weinstein and Tom Cora).

In addition to his solo performances and compositions, Shea also participated in many projects with collectives such as Cobra, Film Works and Absynthe, and artists such as Robin Rimbaud (Scanner), Ikue Mori, DJ Grazzoppa and Zeena Parkins. Drawn to film and video alike, he has composed the sound tracks of several films, notably for John Grimonprez (DIAL H.I.S.T.O.R.Y) and he often accompanies his sound performances with video projections.

He essentially composes with a sampler which lets him improvise with the help of recorded sounds and thus create 'electronic collages': “Sometimes I do solo performances, with just a sampler keyboard, like this evening. In general, each element comes from something I've already written and recorded, or listed to and sampled. I sometimes snitch things from CDs and records, which I combine with instruments. And everything's played and mixed live. If a phrase is constructed from sixteen different elements, I'm going to assign one element to each key and I create the sequences on stage, in real time. In this way, the sampler becomes a virtuoso instrument, played in a physical way.” [1]

Shea also composes for choreographers, especially Karole Armitage. His works have been presented at the Ballets de Monte-Carlo (Segunda Piel [1992], The Rave [2001]), the Brooklyn Academy of Music (The Predators' Ball/Hucksters of the Soul [1996]), the Spoleto Festival and the Rossini Festival.

Since his first recording session in 1992, he has released more than twenty solo albums and has also participated in several collective records. Dureing the 1990s he toured throughout the world, then spent several years in Belgium and finally settled in Australia. In 2001-2002, as part of his participation in the 'Sonic Process' exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, he collaborated with engineers at the IRCAM to develop a new system for live sampling, known as the Najo sampler [2].

As a composer, Shea refuses to make distinctions between the different musical genres and technologies utilised: 'Technology', he says, 'is something I consider like a musical instrument which is no more impressive or more interesting than a violin or a traditional Chinese instrument. In fact, I work on the combination of the electronic and intuitive acoustical playing.' [3] Drawing on texts, films and images taken from Eastern and Western culture, he illustrates all the connections between traditional and electronic music: “. . . a large part of my work is related to the interconnection between different media. . . . The divisions between media are like the artificial divisions between classical music, jazz, techno and popular music: they don't make a lot of sense to me. Even if there are separate identities, these categories are connected. The idea is kind of abstract, but what's involved is finding these connections, how they appear, how they become useful and applicable. . . . That's the subject of my pieces; it's not just about music.” [4]

Emilie Benoit
Translated by Miriam Rosen

[1] http://membres.lycos.fr/plateforme/P2/shea/inter.html

[2] 'Sonic process: a new geography of sounds', Centre Pompidou, 16 October 2002-6 January 2003. Catalogue edited by Christine Van Assche, 2002. IRCAM, the Institute for Research and Coordination Acoustic/Music is part of the Centre Pompidou.

[3] http://membres.lycos.fr/plateforme/P2/shea/inter.html

[4] Ibid.