Jon Rose

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.

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).

Rose has produced a number of large-scale performances inspired by or set in outdoor environments.

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".

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ).

The project had performances in Europe, Canada, China, and Australia, and Rose co-authored a book of the same title.

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.

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.

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.