Keep up with Ross!

Join the email list!

Thanks for stopping by!

Rosśa Crean is a multi-genre recording artist and composer, so don't be afraid of the variety! You can also listen to a lot of Rosśa's work at Soundcloud by clicking here.

Rosśa is always for hire for multimedia and film projects as well. Check out the COMPOSITIONS page to listen to past works!

Connect with Ross!

Summerland: A Ghost Story (Original Soundtrack)

Ross Crean

Inspired by the art of Tim Burton and Edward Gorey, Ross Crean creates a creepy soundscape of strings, piano (inside and out), vocals, toy piano, and melodica, to reflect the story of artist Kenneth Gerleve's installation, which premiered at LUMA in 2014.

Award-winning singer-songwriter and composer, Ross Crean, began his professional career as an

Inspired by the art of Tim Burton and Edward Gorey, Ross Crean creates a creepy soundscape of strings, piano (inside and out), vocals, toy piano, and melodica, to reflect the story of artist Kenneth Gerleve's installation, which premiered at LUMA in 2014.

Award-winning singer-songwriter and composer, Ross Crean, began his professional career as an operatic Bass-Baritone, specializing in avant-garde and 20th century classical music. A graduate of Illinois State University in Music Theory/Composition, he has worked with Stephen Taylor, Augusta Read Thomas, and Nancy Van de Vate. He began training in several vocal styles in his teens, including rock, opera, sean-nos (traditional Gaelic singing), and Indian and Middle Eastern vocal ornamentation. Crean's three-octave range brought him several opportunities to perform pieces that required considerable vocal acrobatics. His emotionally-violent compositions "Missa Dementia", "The Mysteries of Uncle Archibald", and "Xenophysius Obscura" brought the composer/performer a lot of critical acclaim in Europe. By the age of 25, he had performed with the Chicago, Toronto, San Francisco, and Moscow Symphonies, as well as the Parisian Chamber Consort.

In 2005 Crean founded his own record label, Knight & Thorne Music, and has performed worldwide as a solo artist, from the The Knitting Factory to Carnegie Hall. His critically acclaimed albums "Blackwater" and "Lovers and Other Kinds of Monsters" have been featured on Skope TV, Much Music, Fuse TV, and Comcast OnDemand. Just recently, Crean established his own film/composition company called Critical Muse Films, focusing on Chicago-based filmmakers.

After being approached by Kenneth Gerleve in September 2013 to work on "Summerland: A Ghost Story", Crean went straight to work. The two were fans of each other's past projects, and had several influences in common, making it a very natural pairing. Crean used his experience in film composition to follow Gerleve's story and make a soundtrack for "a film in tapestry". Focusing on stringed instruments, piano, and voice, he challenged himself to get as many different sounds from those instruments as possible by incorporating experimental techniques used in film work. Crean's intentionally drifts away from the usual Wagnerian use of leitmotif, his thematic attachment not solely done through melody, but also by instrumentation and timbre.

Read more…
0:00/???
  1. 1
    0:00/2:12
  2. 2
    0:00/1:37
  3. 3
    0:00/2:14
  4. 4
    0:00/1:18
  5. 5
    0:00/1:33
  6. 6
    0:00/2:40
  7. 7
    0:00/1:02
  8. 8
    0:00/1:25
  9. 9
    0:00/1:47
  10. 10
    0:00/0:55
  11. 11
    0:00/1:27
  12. 12
    0:00/1:50
  13. 13
    0:00/1:28
  14. 14
    0:00/4:33
  15. 15
    0:00/1:17
  16. 16
    0:00/4:03
  17. 17
    0:00/1:26
  18. 18
    0:00/0:59
  19. 19
    0:00/4:38
  20. 20
    0:00/3:55