Michael Dunning was born in Glasgow, Scotland.   After graduating from the Edinburgh School of Art  he taught himself to play the double-bass and by the early 1990's was performing in Europe and Japan with the award winning experimental musical - theater group, The New Theater (TNT).   He has also worked for a non-profit arts organization in Edinburgh,  where for 14 years, he developed arts programs for adults with a history of mental health problems.  In 2003 Michael emigrated to US.

Yewshamanism and Craniosacral Therapy
Michael gradually became aware of his calling  as a shaman-healer following a near -death encounter with an elemental spirit in the far north of Scotland.   A second near-death experience occurred several years later which entirely destroyed his health. Michael began to experience  regular visions, prolonged out - of - body states and intense physical pain.   Managing his daily life became a great challenge.  He was finally rescued by a friend who lived in a small cottage close to a 2000 year -old,  female yew tree.  This marked the beginning of a ten-year period of healing and a shamanic initiation through nature, that took place under the vast enclosure of the tree.  Michael believes that the yew tree was once regarded by the indigenous shaman-healers as a great source of occult knowledge holding an ancient  and embryonic language of healing and rejuvenation.   An account of Michael's experiences under the yew tree can be read in the book Soul Companions-Conversations with Contemporary Wisdom keepers. A Collection of Encounters with Spirit.  by Karen Sawyer. Many years later Michael discovered that craniosacral therapy, and particularly the biodynamic model, provided him with a contemporary healing modality that related to some key embryonic aspects of his shamanic work.    Michael teaches yewshamanism throughout New England.   He also practices and teaches as a biodynamic craniosacral therapist.

Writing
2008 The story of Michael's shamanic initiation at the yew tree can be read in the recently published book Soul Companions, Conversations with Contemporary Wisdom Keepers  A Collection of Encounters with Spirit.  The book is by Karen Sawyer and is published by 0-Books.

www.soulcompanions.org

2009 Michael contributed an article about Yewshamanism  to issue 63 of Sacred Hoop Magazine.

www.sacredhoop.org

Music
Michael has performed with almost all of Scotland's best-known jazz musicians, as well as with dancers and dance companies, composers, theatre companies, the carnyx, an opera singer, folk musicians and bagpipers!  Some of his most fulfilling musical work has been with  the world renowned trombonist and educator John Kenny.

 Mike is a wonderful bass player, and one of the most original jazz musicians Scotland has produced in the past thirty years. He also used his art to work extensively with people suffering from a wide variety of physical and emotional disablement, and eventually also trained as a craniosacral therapist – a true polymath. He now lives and works in the USA.  John Kenny

  John  invited Michael to compose and perform as part of a multi-media project and concert in Edinburgh celebrating the reconstruction of the Deskford Carnyx - the Celtic war horn depicted on the Gundestrup Cauldron www.carnyxscotland.co.uk  His short composition, Taxus Baccata is a musical interpretation of a possible meeting between the yew tree and the carnyx.   A live recording of the piece can be heard on the Music for the Yew page of this website.

In terms of carnyx integration, the highlight was a tiny musical journey for bass and carnyx called Taxus Baccata by Michael Dunning. It connected carnyx to the Queen's Hall more successfully than any of the cerebral sound and fury around it.

The Scotsman

Musical Awards

2000 and 2003 The Scottish Arts Council awarded musical study grants to Michael that allowed him to travel to USA to study with the legendary jazz bassist Gary Peacock .

Recordings

2000 Michael recorded with saxophonist and jazz educator, Rob Hall on the album Freewheelers  which includes former Average White Band drummer, Paul Mills. 
www.robhall.co.uk

2002 Michael recorded with the  Scottish jazz pianist and composer Chick Lyall in a quartet featuring Tom Bancroft on drums with the widely respected Swedish tenor player Joakim Milder, best known for his work as sideman with ECM Records veteran, Tomasz Stanko.  The album  Broken Poems by Chick Lyall, is available through Caber Music.  The album is featured in The Penguin Guide to Jazz p 915
 www.cabermusic.com
 
To hear short samples of the album Broken Poems on Amazon.com click this link.

http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Poems/dp/B00178G2K6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249174837&sr=8-1

lyrical, engaging jazz that stands up to anything ECM have put out of late

BBC review, Peter Marsh

2008  Michael was invited by the Western MA gypysy jazz ensemble, Swing Caravan, to record 6 tracks on their latest album Get It Fresh.




Visual Arts
2000  Michael won the Acharossan Award for painting which took him to The Vermont Studio Center in northern Vermont, USA.