Spanning genres & disciplines, Dessa’s style is defined by wit, tenderness, rigor, & candor. As a musician, she’s co-composed for large choirs; crowd-surfed at rock clubs; recorded a live album with the Grammy-winning Minnesota Orchestra; and contributed a track to the #1 album The Hamilton Mixtape. As a speaker, Dessa regularly presents on art, science, and entrepreneurship at colleges and universities across the US. Her TED Talk, which recounts her science experiment on how to fall out of love, has notched more than 4 million views. As an author, she’s written for The New York Times and National Geographic Traveler; been broadcast by the BBC; and published several literary collections including the memoir-in-essays My Own Devices (Penguin Random House). She’s currently serving as Artist in Residence at Georgetown University’s Music Sustainability Initiative. Dessa lives in Minneapolis & Manhattan, still tours in a rented van, and is probably eavesdropping on the neighboring table, listening for a word to add to the collection. You can listen to her music, read her writing, and check out the tour schedule at dessawander.com or find her on Instagram as Dessa, and on Facebook & Bluesky as dessadarling. You can check out my past convo with Dessa here.
photo by: Athel Rogers
