Dameun Maurice Strange is a sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer whose conceptual chamber works, choral pieces and operas are focused on stories of the African diaspora, often exploring afrofuturist themes. Strange is compelled to express through sound, music and poetry, the beauty and resilience of the Black experience, digging into a pantheon of ancestors to tell stories of a triumph, while connecting the past, present, and future. While his sound experiments have many dimensions, he uses West African polyrhythms, with classical music forms, contemporary jazz harmonic explorations, along with found sounds and historic recordings to create modern afrofuturist performances that disrupt the notion of genre and what Black music is and can be and moreover what Blackness is and can be.
Strange was raised in Washington, D.C. and got his start with music at age 5 as a member of the DC Youth Orchestra program and and interest that continued to be cultivated at Metropolitan AME Church where he was a featured saxophone soloist throughout his high school years. Strange currently lives in Saint Paul, MN where he been a featured lecturer on art in the community, afrofuturism and art in the 21st Century at Macalester College, the University of MN and other Twin Cities institutions.
Strange is an award winning composer, Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar and had been a featured composer with Alternative Motion Project for 6 years. The Cedar Cultural Center, International renown artist Seitu Jones via the McKnight Foundation, Ananya Dance Theatre are amongst his most recent commissioners. In 2017, Strange premiered his first full length opera Mother King inspired by the life and death of Alberta Williams King with his upstart opera organization, OperaRising 52. He has also been a featured writing contributor with Pollen Midwest and Nourrir Magazine. Aside from his creative pursuits, Strange is an arts advocate and a creative consultant to leaders and organizations in the for profit, nonprofit and public sectors.
Strange graduated from Macalester College with a Bachelor’s of Art in music with a focus on African drumming and composition, and English (poetry writing). He worked with such artists as J. Otis Powell, Sage Francis, Sha Cage. Strange has used art as a tool to organize communities while working for ACORN, Grassroots Solutions and other campaigns. Previously, he worked as a program associate at the Bush Foundation, and most recently served as the executive director of the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association, the heart of the arts district voted the top arts district in the nation by USA Today readers.