Dorian Wallace

Dorian Wallace is a composer, pianist, and board-certified music therapist who explores music's healing qualities in therapeutic work, social action, and community engagement. His practice integrates contemporary classical composition, free improvisation, and a deep commitment to fostering meaningful, emotionally resonant experiences.

Dorian's compositions often engage with sociopolitical, emotional, and psychological themes. He has had the privilege of collaborating with artists like Paul Pinto, Pamela Z, Bonita Oliver, and John Sanborn. His music draws from experimentalism, expressionism, romanticism, and rhythmic complexity, creating thought-provoking, cathartic works. Alongside violinist Hajnal Pivnick, Dorian co-founded NYC-based new music collective Tenth Intervention. They have performed live silent-film scores at venues such as Nitehawk Cinema, Threes Brewing, and the late Videology. He accompanies the Sing In Solidarity chorus, amplifying the voices of activists, marginalized communities, and international labor and decolonial movements.

His music therapy work extends to people incarcerated at Rikers Island, Crossroads Juvenile Detention Center, and Sing Sing Correctional Facility; survivors of cults through the Lalich Center for Cults and Coercion; and patients on hospice care at Calvary Hospital. He integrates dynamic listening, improvisation, and lyric analysis to support trauma-informed, liberation-centered therapeutic spaces. His Liberation Music Therapy concept has been presented at institutions such as Columbia University, the Trauma Research Foundation, Montclair State University, the University of Louisville, and Loughborough University, among others. He leads workshops for adult film workers through Pineapple Support, activists experiencing burnout through the Democratic Socialists of America, and people transitioning out of insular communities with Footsteps.

Dorian is an active dance and ceremony accompanist who creates responsive soundscapes to support movement, storytelling, and rituals. He teaches a course at the Martha Graham School to deepen professional dancers' relationship with musicality.

Dorian's work as a composer, pianist, and therapist remains committed to exploring the ways music can facilitate connection, healing, and social change.