Jon Rose
Jon Rose (AU/NL) is a violinist.
String 'em Up festival; photo: Jan Sprij
Jon Rose, born 1951, started playing the violin at 7 years old, after winning a music scholarship. He gave up formal music education at the age of 15 to become a professional violin player. Halfway through the 1970s, Rose moved to Australia. He soon became a catalyst for the burgeoning avant-garde scene and recorded his first albums there for the label Fringe Benefit. 1985, he moved to Berlin, where his art blossomed. In the early '90s, the violinist began to experiment with MIDI interactive electronics. He developed electronic applications for the violin at Steim, in Amsterdam. From 1990 till 1993, he worked on the Rosenberg cycle, a trilogy of radio works based on a fictional family of Australian violinists that yielded two albums. Next came the Shopping cycle (1994-1996), a satirical take on consumerism. Rose formed a new duo Temperament in 2000 with pianist Veryan Weston, specializing in improvisation with different tunings for the keyboards and various scordatura for the violins.
