Donald Swearingen is an Oakland, California-based composer, performer, multimedia artist, and designer of interactive electronics and installations. Classically trained, but with an ear to the radio, he gravitated to popular music in his teens and early twenties, working for 10 years in the Memphis music industry, both as a traveling performer, and as a recording artist at such legendary studios as Stax and Hi Records. Eventually, his work with studio electronics and synthesizers reoriented his focus, and he turned to the academic world where he pursued interdisciplinary studies in piano, computer music, mathematics, electronics and physics. For the past 20 years, his work has centered on the use of movement and gesture as the source of media control in an expanded, computer-assisted performance environment, leading to the design of custom instruments and software for both himself and numerous other artists. He has performed and lectured widely in the United States and abroad, and his work has been presented at San Francisco Bay Area venues such as Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Lab, ODC, the Other Minds Festival, the California Academy of Sciences, and the ROOM Series. He is a founder and member of the advisory board of the
San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, and was a featured festival performer in 2002 and 2012.
donaldswearingen.com
Donald has worked continuously with Dohee Lee since 2014, including the productions of
Mago, Ara and the upcoming (2020)
Mu. 
