Bio

Terry Dame is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and instrument builder. She has been living and working in New York City since 1985, composing and performing for film, video, theater, dance, and concerts. She has collaborated with film makers Maria Maggenti, Judith Helfand, Jennie Livingston, Diane Bonder and Erin Greenwell, performing artists Lisa Kron and Jennifer Miller and choreographer Jennifer Monson.

Ms. Dame directs and composes for as well as designs and builds the instruments used by the percussion based ensemble Electric Junkyard Gamelan. She is the music director, composer and saxophonist with the seven piece new music group Monkey on a Rail and a founding member of the improvisation trio Trophy Wife . She was composer in residence and saxophonist with Jennifer Miller's New York based Circus Amok from 1994-2004 . Ms. Dame is also a member of Gamelan Dharma Swara, the traditional Balinese Gamelan based at the Indonesian Consulate in New York City and Paprika, the acclaimed all-female international dance music band. She was an artist in residence at HERE Art Center in New York City during 2003 & 2004 and has received commissioning funds from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, The Rockefeller Foundation, New York State Council for the Arts and the Meet the Composer Fund.

Ms. Dame was recently chosen to be a 2006 Sundance Institute Composer Lab Fellow. Recent collaborations include scores for Maria Maggenti’s Puccini for Begginers which premiered in competition at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and Erin Greenwell’s feature comedy Mom. Her score for Diane Bonder’s experimental short Closer to Heaven was awarded best sound design at the Ann Arbor Film Festival.

Ms. Dame holds an MFA in composition and performance from the California Institute of the Arts where she studied traditional Persian, Hindustani and Carnatic music with master musicians Hossien Alizadeh, Rajeev Taranath and Poovalur Srinivassan. She has also studied Balinese Gamelan with I Nyomen Wenten, and composition with Wadada Leo Smith, Morton Subotnik, and Daniel Rothman.