Dominique Lawalree was born in Brussels on October, 18, 1954 and has been an active composer since 1976. Since this time, Lawalree has written over 450 works, recorded more than twenty albums, and has performed countless tours throughout Europe. Throughout his music the listener finds the sounds of piano, synthesizers, percussion, fender rhodes, organ, and voice, all performed by Lawalree. Using these tools Dominique creates miniature themes that gallop across the speakers in slow motion, stretching our normal sense of dynamics and color, effortlessly widening the stereo plane. Childlike in its playfulness and surreal to the bone, the music spins like a carrousel placed inside the Rothko Chapel.

Lawalree’s sense of timbre, tone, and overarching composition is similar to a memory of cinema but not for the big screen. It seems more like an impression of a home movie whose charm can only be shared with the intimacy of a few. New Simplicity, Post-Minimalism, Proto-Ambient, or Totalism are all darts you can throw at this music but none of these descriptors quite pierce the distinct individuality that Lawalree’s music is made of.

The Dominique Lawalree Ensemble is Dominique Lawalree, Leo Svirsky, and Britton Powell