Ron
Geesin
Composer, performer,
sound architect, writer, lecturer, broadcaster and interactive designer, was born
in Ayrshire, 1943.
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At Abbey Road with his Atom Heart Mother score
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CDs include
HEADSCOPE's Funny
Frown (1991) and Bluefuse
(1993), CHERRY RED's Hystery
(1994) and CLEOPATRA's (LA)
Land Of Mist, June 1995. SEE FOR MILES reissued his
first 2 albums on CD in 1995.
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His Tune
Tube,a giant interactive walk-through tube in sound and light 'played'
from the inside by individuals' body-movements, was a huge success at The Art
Machine exhibition for 'Glasgow 1990' ("it takes the prize": The Times).
For Expo 70
(Osaka Japan), he made a large multi-source sound-work in the British Pavilion.
He and his wife Frances designed and installed Tri-Aura
(interactive textile triptych) at The Science Museum in 1996 and he designed
the quadraphonic Singing Bridge for its new Challenge of Materials Gallery
in 1997. In 1998 he created 2 public interactive events in Portsmouth: Sound-A-Maze
for Shock Waves Festival and Sea Sound, the University of Portsmouth's
exhibit for the International Festival of the Sea.
Media
appearances range from sound specialist on The D.I.Y. Animation Show
[BBC1TV], to his own One Man's Week [BBC2TV], commissioned features for
Late Night Line Up [BBC2TV] and Crossing Bridges [C4TV], and character
acting in Scotch Myths [C4TV] and Closerap [C4TV].
As
'Bonnie Prince Charlie'
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As
'The Bonnie Heighland Laddie'
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He
was often featured on John Peel and Bob Harris shows for BBC
R1. Geesin's 1993 impression of the River Trent Splashpast was broadcast
on BBC R4, and the 3/4hr 'fantasy for Purcell' Mask on BBC R3 in 1995
(a Sony award nomination). In 1993 he researched, wrote and presented his
6-part series on saxophonist Coleman Hawkins Hawk Stalks on BBC R3,
following this in January 1995 with his 4-part analysis of the much underrated
American pianist/composer, James P. Johnson.
Music
for film and TV includes the first 'blinking eye' Kodak commercial through art,
documentary, drama and educational programmes including The Piero Trail
[BBC1 TV "Omnibus"], Sam Smith, Genuine England [BBC2TV], The Long
Ride [C4TV], Scotch Myths [C4TV], The
Green-Eyed Monster [ITV], and feature films The Body, Sunday
Bloody Sunday, Ghost Story, Sword Of The Valiant, and
The Girl In The Picture.
His
improvised one-man show has been performed from
folk clubs to the Albert Hall, from Scotland to Scandinavia since 1965 and features
banjos, guitars, piano, poems and stories, milkchurns, electronics, coat-stands
and, most importantly, the audiences themselves.
His
collaborations with artist/writer Ian
Breakwell include the quadraphonic Bellring (1996), their acclaimed
1993 large-screen video installation Auditorium and Breakwell's autobiographical
TV series Public Face Private Eye [C4TV].
As
a spirited and informed lecturer, he has excited students since 1969 from primary
schools to universities, examining the combining of music and sound with subjects
as diverse as typography, the street and the media. In 1987 he was composer-in-residence
at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Herstmonceux. He is now Senior Research
Fellow in Sound at the University of Portsmouth.
He
describes his live improvisations as "sub-conscious flow", studio music as "electro-melodic
sound-painting" and his life as "chance careering". Tony Palmer [The Observer]:
"behind this manic subterfuge there lurks a powerful musical intelligence".
Robin Denselow [The Guardian]: "an accomplished composer and musician, an experimenter
on the free form edge, poet, and a comedian with a taste for the absurd".
The
name Geesin comes from the village of Gissing, Norfolk, modified
through Geesing in 17th Century Leicestershire.
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