Jon Rose

---

title: "Jon Rose" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1951-births", "20th-century-australian-violinists", "20th-century-australian-male-musicians", "21st-century-australian-violinists", "21st-century-australian-male-musicians", "20th-century-australian-composers", "21st-century-australian-composers", "jazz-cellists", "australian-jazz-violinists", "living-people", "australian-cellists", "male-violinists", "australian-male-composers", "inventors-of-musical-instruments", "21st-century-cellists", "australian-male-jazz-musicians", "intakt-records-artists"] description: "Australian musical artist" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Rose" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Australian musical artist ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox musical artist"]

Field	Value
name	Jon Rose
image	Jon_rose_at_steim2009.jpg
landscape	yes
caption	Rose at STEIM in Amsterdam, 2009
background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
birth_date
birth_place	Maidstone, England
death_date
genre	Free improvisation
occupation	Instrumentalist
Composer
instrument	Violins, cello, fence, custom-built instruments, interactive electronics, keyboards
years_active	1974present
website
::

| honorific_prefix = | name = Jon Rose | honorific_suffix = | image = Jon_rose_at_steim2009.jpg | image_upright = | image_size = | landscape = yes | alt = | caption = Rose at STEIM in Amsterdam, 2009 | background = non_vocal_instrumentalist | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = | alias = | birth_date = | birth_place = Maidstone, England | origin = | death_date = | death_place = | genre = Free improvisation | occupation = Instrumentalist Composer | instrument = Violins, cello, fence, custom-built instruments, interactive electronics, keyboards | years_active = 1974present | label = | website = | module = | module2 = | module3 =

Jonathan Anthony Rose (born 19 February 1951) is an Australian violinist, cellist, composer, and multimedia artist. Rose's work is centered in the experimental music known as free improvisation, where he has created large environmental multimedia works, built experimental musical instruments, and improvised violin concertos with accompanying orchestra. He has been described by Tony Mitchell as "undoubtedly the most exploratory, imaginative and iconoclastic violin player who has lived in Australia".

Early life

Born in England, Jon Rose attended King's School, Rochester, where he sang in the cathedral choir and studied the violin on scholarship. He discontinued formal violin lessons at the age of 15. Rose studied and performed in a range of genres in Australia and the United Kingdom during the 1970s, including Italian club bands, country & western, bebop, and new music.

Improvising musician

As a genre, free improvisation was developed by European and American musicians in the 1960s. Free improvisation is defined by its lack of rules and is built on a rejection of structural conventions like a set musical form, defined meter, steady tempo, well-defined tonality, or fixed chord changes. Performed in a small group or by an individual soloist, free improvisation is an exploration of expressive sound. Although free to follow their personal musical inclinations and preferences, free improvisers nevertheless develop a personal musical vocabulary from which to draw upon. Practitioners of free improvisation include guitarists Derek Bailey and Fred Frith, as well as saxophonists Evan Parker and John Zorn.

Rose's work in free improvisation in Australia in the mid-1970s included his use of violin tunings and musical temperament along with electronics (both analog and interactive digital). He has performed as a soloist or as a member of a small group of fellow improvisers, including Jim Denley, Louis Burdett, Dave Ellis, Simone De Haan, Veryan Weston and Rik Rue.

Compositions

Orchestral compositions

Rose has worked as a composer with various ensembles and organizations including Ensemble Offspring, Tura New Music, Decibel, Speak Percussion, Soundstream, the NOW now Festival, and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Some of Rose's compositions for orchestra include Violin Music in the Age of Shopping (1994-1996), which involved the recomposition of a myriad of genres for choir, string orchestra, band, soloists, and sampling (usually by Otomo Yoshihide In Violin Factory (1999) an orchestra plays satiric string music in the context of mechanical production and reproduction. Performed in Österreichische Rundfunk Concert Hall, Vienna (1999) and at Wogarno Station in Western Australia (2001), the satire was the result of Rose's experiences at two violin factories in China.

Charlie's Whiskers (2004) for string orchestra, piano, saw, and live sampling, pays tribute to composer Charles Ives. Rose's Internal Combustion (2008) is a concerto for amplified orchestra, solo improvised violin, and video. An accompanying video quotes Rose's previous work, such as him riding his custom-built bicycle-powered violin and a violin being played with ping pong balls. It was performed at The Berlin Philharmonic by ensemble Unitedberlin with a commission from the MaerzMusik festival.

The Auctioneer Says (2012) is orchestrated for cello, viola, alto saxophone, electric bass, percussion, and video, with Rose playing an auctioneer. It was commissioned by Decibel New Music in Perth. Ghan Tracks (2014) combines multimedia performance, installation, live radio, and a documentary. Commissioned by Ensemble Offspring, it was performed by them, Speak Percussion, and actors collaborating with the Creative Audio Unit of Radio National at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Rose's Picnic at Broken Hill (2015) was commissioned by Soundstream, and uses a pitch-to-MIDI application. Rose transcribed the piece for piano as the musical contours of a pair of 1915 suicide letters read in Urdu. These were penned by a pair of cameleers accused of attacking a train of picnickers in protest of the Allied campaign at Gallipoli during the First World War. Each hand of the pianist performs a separate re-enacted letter.

Radio compositions

Rose has used the medium of live radio broadcasts to present original content influenced by historical musical figures and topics. These productions include broadcasts for radio stations such as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the BBC, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), Saarländischer Rundfunk, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Radio France, Rai Radio 3, Österreichischer Rundfunk, and Sender Freies Berlin (SFB).

• Paganini's Last Testimony (1988) for ABC, which envisions the famous violinist as a celebrity faith healer.
• The Mozart Industry (1993) for Saarländischer Rundfunk, which explores the posthumous industry of Mozart.
• The Long Sufferings of Anna Magdalena Bach (1998) for ABC, inspired by the life and work of J. S. Bach's second wife.
• Skeleton in the Museum (2003) for ABC, a portrait of pianist/composer Percy Grainger that won the 2004 .
• Syd and George (2008) for SFB, concerns the relationship between a lyrebird ("George") and his researcher, Syd Curtis. Lyrebirds are expert mimics, and Rose's score for string quartet draws on imitation as an organizing principle.
• Salvado (2009) for BBC, which dramatizes the story of the establishment of an Aboriginal string orchestra by a Spanish priest in 1846.
• Not Quite Cricket (2012) for BBC, which re-examined the first Aboriginal cricket tour to England in 1868.
• Ghan Stories (20142015) for ABC, which tells of the Old Ghan railway built from Port Augusta to Alice Springs between 1878 and 1929.

Environmental works

Rose has produced a number of large-scale performances inspired by or set in outdoor environments. In Great Fences of Australia (1983), Rose bowed and recorded wire fences throughout the Australian continent. Typically, Rose uses both the hair and stick of cello and bass bows to sound wire fences, which he supplements with small contact microphones attached at the meeting point of fence wire and fence post. In 2009, Rose was commissioned by Kronos Quartet and The Sydney Opera House to build a set of four fence instruments to be played in concert. Rose then composed Music from 4 Fences for a quartet of fence wire stretched on metal frames.

Rose has performed on the violin accompanied by his videos of outback fences, both those he has bowed and others he only filmed. In the 2010 film The Reach of Resonance, Rose discussed how playing fences as instruments prompted him and others to consider how fences impact the environment.

Rose expanded Great Fences of Australia to other locations including Bosnia, Belfast, the Golan Heights, Mexico, the United States, and Finland. In November 2006, Rose was detained and later released by Israeli Defence Forces while playing a part of the separation fence in Bil'in, a Palestinian village located in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, 12 km west of the city of Ramallah in the central West Bank.

Other environmental projects which explore culturally significant objects include:

• Kayak (2008), a paddle-powered harpsichord performance at Pier 40 in San Francisco, accompanied by Bob Ostertag in a kayak sending accelerometer signals to Rose acting as composer and computer operator.
• Kite Music (2008), in which transmitting kites are fitted with radio video cameras and accelerometers.
• Digger Music (2008), a duet for violin and mechanical excavator.
• Wreck (20132017), in which rusting car wrecks were converted into functional music instruments.
• Hills Hoist (2014), in which a clothesline was converted into a propeller-powered wind installation.
• Canto Cracticus (2016), a collaboration with ornithologist Hollis Taylor utilizing the vocalizations of the pied butcherbird. Performances included Singing Up Tyalgum at the 2016 Tyalgum Music Festival and Absolute Bird with recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

Rose's projects where the physical activities of sports are augmented by interactive sonic compositions include Squash (1983), Cricket (1985), badminton (Perks 19951998), netball (Team Music 2008, 2010, 2014), and Skateboard Music (2010).

Live performances

Rose's live performances have included multimedia content, including text, audio, video, and interactive components. In 1998, he began using an interactive bow to modulate the parameters of video (including speed, color, and revolutions) and of sound (pitch including pitch bend, volume, timbre, duration, panning, and silence). The interactive bow manipulated a variety of sounds, from bowing and plucking to a range of electronic sounds, and to preprogrammed samples that play when the bow and violin have certain interactions.

In the 1980s, Rose performed a series of marathon improvised solos. The longest continuous solo (12 hours) was part of Sound Barriers at the Ivan Dougherty Gallery at the Alexander Mackie School of Art in Sydney in 1982, followed by a ten-hour concert at New Music America in Houston in 1986. In Europe, he performed marathon concerts of 3, 5, and 6 hours.

In 2006, John Oswald (composer) invited Rose to improvise a solo part for the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Elastic Band saw repeat performances with the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna and with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.

Rose also curated and performed at his own festival, String 'Em Up, which focused on stringed instruments and which travelled to Berlin (1998), Rotterdam (1999), New York City (2000), and Paris (2002).

His multimedia performance works include:

• Pannikin (2005) featured a selection of soloists from Australia Ad Lib. Pannikin showcased a singing dingo, a chainsaw orchestra, a bowed saw orchestra, a livestock auctioneer, a virtuoso of whip techniques, and a performer who simultaneously hums and whistles.
• Pursuit (20092013), where Rose utilized a mobile bicycle-powered orchestra of regular and custom-built instruments along with tennis racquets, ping pong balls, buckets, wine bottles, and a kitchen sink, transforming these items into unique music machines.
• Sonic Ball (2015) at the inaugural opening celebrations of the performing arts venue National Sawdust in Brooklyn, New York. For this project, as the audience plays with a huge white ball, the ball's movements (pushing, throwing, rolling) power and transmit an interactive electronic system, producing a sonic outcome.

Instrument builder

Rose's improvisational work led to his building of custom instruments. As a luthier, Rose has built new string instruments and modified conventional ones, as well as repurposed other everyday items. His early instrument building in the 1970s and 1980s incorporated wind, water, and wheels to activate and/or modulate the sound of an array of string types, from violin gut strings to fence wire. his amplified 19-string tenor cello, which was built in 1981, and his Whipolin, a seven-string disembowelled cello fitted with wheels that are bowed similarly to a hurdy-gurdy.

From 1985, Rose worked in conjunction with engineers at the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) in Amsterdam to develop a series of interactive MIDI bows (and amplified bows) under the title Hyperstring Project. He uses various controllers in his MIDI bows, mounted on both his wrist and on the bows themselves. One controller measures bow pressure and another measures bow arm movement and speed, while foot pedals are played by both feet independently. In this way, Rose is able to simultaneously play multiple lines of melodies and polyrhythms by means of different controllers which measure the physicality of his high speed improvisation.

Reception

New York Times music critic Stephen Holden observed the wide range of Rose's improvisations, from late Romantic tonal solos to freeform explorations. Rose's 27 March 1986 performance at New York City's Experimental Intermedia Foundation featured Super 8 films that Rose shot in the Australian outback consisting of "rapid jump-cut editing and sped-up footage", which Holden described as "the most audacious music improvisations" and "the evening's most ambitious work". "Jon Rose is the Thomas Edison of the vibrating string", wrote Ken Waxman in Jazzword.

According to Graham Strahle, Rose has established a reputation as a musical larrikin, observing that Rose has been "pushing boundaries in improvisation and technology for years as a violinist, composer and general musical provocateur, coming up with such wry inventions as the interactive MIDI violin bow and Fence Project – they rival Percy Grainger’s wacky Kangaroo Pouch Tone Tool for unbridled creativity."

Gail Priest from RealTime described Rose's embrace of the Australian landscape in his various musical activities as "Australia made extraordinary". In his review of the CD Futch for The Squid's Ear, Kurt Gottschalk called Rose "a tireless conceptualist, making music out of political borders and rewriting economics and history like a viol-centric Marco Polo".

Don Banks Music Award

The Don Banks Music Award was established in 1984 to publicly honour a senior artist of high distinction who has made an outstanding and sustained contribution to music in Australia. It was founded by the Australia Council in honour of Don Banks, Australian composer, performer and the first chair of its music board.

|- | 2012 | Jon Rose | Don Banks Music Award | |-

Residencies

In 2006, Rose was awarded the David Tudor Composer-in-Residence at Mills College and completed a lecture and concert tour of various University of California system campuses that same year.

Author

Rose has authored works which have been published as the following:

Discography

::data[format=table title="Select discography"]

LP	Year	Title	Label	Notes	CD	Year	Title	Label	Notes
1978	Solo Violin Improvisations	Fringe Benefit
1979	Decomposition
1984	Tango	HOT
1987	Forward of Short Leg	Dossier
Vivisection	AufRuhr
1989	Paganini's Last Testimony	Konnex
1990	Die Beethoven Konversationen	Extraplatte
1991	Slawterhaus Live	Victo
The Mozart Industry; Saint Johanna	Extraplatte
Pulled Muscles	Immigrant
1992	Violin Music for Restaurants	ReR
1993	Brain Weather: The Story of the Rosenbergs
The Virtual Violin	Megaphone
Monumental	Intakt
1994	Violin Music for Supermarkets	Megaphone
1995	Eine Violine fur Valentin: A Homage to Karl Valentin	No Wave
Violin Music in the Age of Shopping	Intakt
Tatakiuri	Creativeman Disc
1996	Exiles 1	Megaphone
Techno mit Störungen	Plag Dich Nicht
Perks	ReR
1997	://shopping.live@victo
China Copy
1998	The Fence
1999	Sliding	Sonic Factory
2000	The Hyperstring Project	ReR
2001	The Violin Factory	Hermes Discorbie
Transgenic Nomad	Sonore
The Kryonics	Emanem
Strung	Sublingual
2002	Temperament	Emanem
Great Fences of Australia	Dynamo House
2003	The People's Music	ReR
Fleisch	Saucerlike
2004	Double Indemnity	Hermes Discorbie
2011	Futch	Jazzwerkstatt Berlin
2012	Rosin	ReR
2013	Colophony	Creative Sources
2015	Tuning Out	Emanem
::

References

References

1. "Jon Rose Biography & History AllMusic".
2. "Represented Artist Profile: Jon Rose".
3. (2012). "Arcana VI: Musicians on Music". Hips Road.
4. "Represented Artist Profile: Jon Rose".
5. (n.d.). "A Relatively planned tour of stand-up improvisers". [[The Sydney Morning Herald]].
6. (2003). "Currency Companion to Music & Dance in Australia". Currency House in association with Currency Press, Sydney; Gazelle-distributor.
7. "NMA Publications".
8. "Jon Rose: Violin Factory".
9. (7 December 1999). "Wien – Vancouver Program Description".
10. (5 January 2013). "Jon Rose, Rosin (ReR)". The Independent.
11. "ensemble unitedberlin".
12. "Australian Music Centre: The Auctioneer Says (multimedia work)".
13. (10 July 2013). "Jon Rose's The Music of Place: Reclaiming a Practice". [[RealTime Arts]].
14. "Ghan Tracks Jon Rose with Ensemble Offspring and Speak Percussion presented by Performance Space".
15. (17 May 2017). "Of Broken Trees and Elephant Ivories: A Musical Journey Inspired by the Legacy of Pianos in Colonial Australia". Resonate Magazine.
16. (2014). "A Companion to the Australian Media". Australian Scholarly.
17. "Jon Rose: Paganini's Last Testimony".
18. "2 Real Violin Stories: The Mozart Industry".
19. Toop, Richard. "Jon Rose's Joyous Resistance : Feature Article". [[Australian Music Centre]].
20. "Karl Sczuka Prize for Works of Radio Art Archive – 'Karl Sczuka Preis, 2004'". swr.online.
21. "Ubuweb: Sound: Jon Rose".
22. (July 2013). "Jon Rose: Rosin". [[RealTime Arts]].
23. (2016). "Loading the Silence: Australian Sound Art in the Post-Digital Age.". Routledge.
24. (April 2015). "''Not Quite Cricket'' by Jon Rose: A Review". University of Wollongong Australia.
25. "Ghan Stories".
26. (2007-02-11). "The Music of Barbed Wire".
27. (2007). "Post Impressions: A Travel Book for Tragic Intellectuals". H. Taylor and J. Rose.
28. (September 2012). "The Musical Iconoclast". Limelight Magazine.
29. (2015). "Bowing Australia's Outback Fences: A Sonic Cartography". Contemporary Music Review.
30. "Music from 4 Fences".
31. (16 May 2011). "Kronos Quartet, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall reaching around the world". Herald Scotland.
32. (7 December 2015). "Fences no barrier to perfect harmonics". [[The Sydney Morning Herald]].
33. (27 April 2012). "Review". Science Magazine.
34. "An Aural Map of Australia".
35. (14 August 2014). "Jon Rose: the Thomas Edison of the vibrating string". ABC Radio National.
36. (6 December 2013). "Meet the Guy Who Uses Fences as Instruments".
37. "ausland: Bob Ostertag + Jon Rose".
38. (21 March 2012). "Larrikin par excellence". Resonate Magazine.
39. "Carriageworks: Wreck".
40. (25 January 2017). "Wreck Project Set to Resonate". The Kimberley Echo.
41. (2016). "The Rosenberg Museum". The Museum Goes Live: Performance Space: Sydney, 27 October – 6 November.
42. (December 2010). "Blowin' in Birdland: Improvisation and the Australian Pied Butcherbird". [[Leonardo Music Journal]].
43. (26 July 2017). "Birdsong has inspired humans for centuries: is it music?". The Conversation.
44. (21 July 2016). "Thoughtfully Curated With a Satisfying Narrative Arc". Adelaide Now.
45. (8 August 2008). "Rosenberg Museum Interactive 1998 performed by Jon Rose".
46. (October 2006). "Jon Rose". Contemporary Music Review.
47. "Edizione Festival".
48. (27 May 2015). "From Israel to Iceland". [[The Australian Jewish News]].
49. "String 'em Up".
50. (2005-09-17). "Feel the noise". [[The Age]].
51. (11 October 2005). "Pannikin: Jon Rose". [[The Age]].
52. (2013-10-17). "The Canberra Pursuit – Recycled bikes make new music".
53. "Jon Rose".
54. "Jon Rose – The Big Ball".
55. (2009). "Sounding Postmodernism: Sampling Australian Composers, Sound Artists and Music Critics". [[Australian Music Centre]].
56. "Jon Rose & Veryan Weston – Temperament".
57. "Music vs Capitalism, Ghosts in Machines".
58. (24 September 1983). "Feel free to laugh, he said—and the house broke up". [[The Sydney Morning Herald]].
59. (29 October 2016). "The Museum Goes Live (Liveworks Festival)".
60. (May 2013). "Cosmopolitan Swagman Violinist". Music Forum.
61. (2003). "The Contemporary Violin: Extended Performance Techniques.". Scarecrow Press.
62. Rose, Jon. (2012). "Hyperstring". ReR.
63. (2001). "Jon Rose: The Hyperstring Project. The New Dynamic of Rogue Counterpoint". Computer Music Journal.
64. (30 March 1986). "Music: Jon Rose Improvises With Fiddles". The New York Times.
65. "Fiddle tricks".
66. (24 September 2001). "Jon Rose: S-T-R-U-N-G review".
67. (16 January 2017). "Does Classical Music Need More Aussie Larrikins?". Music Australia.
68. (9 April 2012). "Jon Rose: Australia Made Extraordinary".
69. "Review: Johannes Bauer / Thomas Lehn / Jon Rose – Futch (Jazwerkstatt)".
70. "Don Banks Music Award: Prize". [[Australian Music Centre]].
71. (21 March 2012). "Don Banks Award 2012 Jon Rose". Resonate Magazine.
72. (1978). "Solo Violin Improvisations". Fringe Benefit Records.
73. (1979). "Decomposition". Fringe Benefit Records.
74. (1984). "Tango". HOT Records.
75. (1987). "Forward of Short Leg". Dossier.
76. (1987). "Vivisection". AufRuhr Records.
77. (1989). "Paganini's Last Testimony". Konnex Records.
78. (1990). "Die Beethoven Konversationen". Extraplatte.
79. (1991). "Slawterhaus Live". Victo.
80. (1991). "The Mozart Industry; Saint Johanna". Extraplatte.
81. (1991). "Pulled Muscles". Immigrant.
82. (1994). "Violin Music for Restaurants: Feat. the Legendary Jo "Doc" Rosenberg". ReR.
83. (1993). "Brain Weather: The Story of the Rosenbergs: an opéra pervers". ReR.
84. (1993). "The Virtual Violin". Megaphone Records.
85. (1993). "Monumental". Intakt.
86. (1994). "Violin Music for Supermarkets". Megaphone Records.
87. (1995). "Eine Violine fur Valentin: a homage to Karl Valentin". No Wave.
88. (1995). "Violin Music in the Age of Shopping". Intakt.
89. (1995). "Tatakiuri". Creativeman Disc.
90. (1996). "Exiles 1". Megaphone Records.
91. (1996). "Techno mit Störungen". Plag Dich Nicht.
92. (1996). "Perks". ReR.
93. (1997). "//shopping.live@victo". ReR.
94. (1997). "China Copy". CreamGardens.
95. (1998). "The Fence". ReR.
96. (1999). "Sliding". Sonic Factory.
97. (2000). "The Hyperstring Project". ReR.
98. (2001). "Violin Factory". ReR.
99. (2001). "Transgenic Nomad". Sonore.
100. (2001). "The Kryonics". Emanem.
101. (2001). "Strung". Sublingual Records.
102. (2002). "Temperament: A Selection of Improvisations Using Differing Tunings Derived From Science, History, and the Imagination". Emanem.
103. (2002). "Great Fences of Australia". Dynamo House.
104. (2003). "The People's Music". ReR.
105. (2003). "Fleisch". Saucerlike Recordings.
106. (2004). "Double Indemnity". Hermes Discorbie.
107. (2011). "Futch". Jazzwerkstatt Records.
108. (2012). "Rosin". ReR.
109. (2013). "Colophony". Creative Sources.
110. (2015). "Tuning Out". Emanem.

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