Dennis Rea's musical trajectory began in the early 1970s when he formed the eccentric progressive-rock group Zuir in his hometown of Utica, New York. In the late 1970s he made a series of albums in Germany with Craig Wuest's Earthstar (produced by electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze), perhaps the only American unit to participate in that country's "kosmische musik" scene at its height. In the early 1980s he collaborated with composer K. Leimer in the vanguard Seattle-based experimental music group Savant. In 1983 he moved to New York City, where he was involved with the Downtown new-music community. Since returning to Seattle in the late 1980s, he has performed or recorded with such accomplished musicians as Hector Zazou, Stuart Dempster, Cui Jian, Albert Kuvezin, Klaus Schulze, Steve Fisk, Han Bennink, Hawkwind members Nik Turner and Michael Moorcock, Jeff Greinke, and members of King Crimson, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Santana, Ministry, and the Sun Ra Arkestra.
Between 1989-96 he spent several years in China and Taiwan, playing more than 100 concerts at cultural centers, universities, conservatories, expat bars, religious celebrations, and underground happenings; on radio and television; and in sports arenas with the Chinese pop star Zhang Xing. His 1990 solo album for the state-run China Record Company, Shadow in Dreams, sold 40,000 copies and was cited among the year's best releases by Party organ China Youth Daily. While abroad he organized three of the earliest below-the-radar concert tours of China by progressive Western bands, with more than 40 concerts in Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing, Kunming, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau, plus a performance at the 1991 Sichuan China International TV Festival viewed by a TV audience numbering in the hundreds of millions. He has performed with such influential Chinese musicians as Cui Jian, Wang Yong, Liu Yuan, Liang Heping, He Yong, ADO, and Cobra. He has written extensively about Chinese and other Asian music in popular and academic publications including CHIME, the Routledge Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture, and the Routledge History of . In 2005 he toured Taiwan with international expat bands Jetlegrs and Chekov, followed by 2008 Identity Crisis reunion concerts and gigs with international jazz-rock quartet Ting Bu Dong.
Rea has been awarded grants for his musical activities by the U.S. State Department (Fulbright-Hays program), Arts International Fund for U.S. Artists Abroad, Seattle Arts Commission, King County Arts Commission, Malcolm S. Morse Foundation, and Jack Straw Foundation, and has received support or encouragement from the Washington State China Relations Council, European Foundation for Chinese Music Research, and New York's China Institute to conduct research for Live at the Forbidden City, a book-length account of his groundbreaking experiences playing music in East Asia. He has been profiled in Guitar Player and numerous print and online publications; interviewed by NPR and other nationally syndicated radio programs; and acted as a panelist or consultant for the Experience Music Project, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Jack Straw Productions, and the Seattle Center ArtsEdge Festival. He has presented dozens of the world's finest progressive, experimental, and improvising musicians to Northwest audiences as a former co-director of the (now 34-year-old) Seattle Improvised Music Festival and Other Sounds concert series, and current co-director of Seaprog, Seattle's annual festival of progressive and psychedelic music. From 1997-2001 he was co-editor of the Tentacle journal of Northwest creative music.
