Brian Dewan (born 14 June 1963) is an American multi-media artist, who produces music, audio-visual performances, decorative painting, furniture, poetry, filmstrips, illustrations, and musical instruments. He has released three albums of songs and performed extensively in clubs and concert halls as a solo artist and as a member of various ensembles. He lives in Catskill, New York. Brian is the brother of artist Ted Dewan and the cousin of musical instrument builder/musician Leon Dewan. Music Dewan has a cross-genre approach to music, although he is predominantly known for his folk-tinged vocal stylings and instrumental electronic music, which on a performance level are generally mutually exclusive. His vocal repertoire references folk music, hymns, popular songs from bygone eras (especially topical songs from the 19th and early 20th centuries), and rock music. He also composes original songs reflecting these influences. These genres permeate his first two full-length albums, Brian Dewan Tells the Story (1993, Bar None Records) and The Operating Theatre (1998, Instinct Records). His songs often contemplate the nature of submission to authority, often in a storytelling manner. His lyrics are by turns humorous, philosophical, and contemplative. His historical song repertoire often betrays a post-modern irony in the re-telling. In live performance, Dewan accompanies his singing with a home-built electric zither, outfitted with eight humbucker pickups and 88 strings, sometimes piped through a leslie cabinet or guitar effects pedals. He also plays a variety of other instruments, including autoharp, koto, organ, and accordion. His electronic music, either solo or in collaboration with his cousin, Leon Dewan, tends to be more sprawling and free-form, often evoking the dissonance of early analog electronic music. Dewan has worked with They Might Be Giants, Sesame Street, Flaming Fire, Jed Davis, The Music Tapes, Loser's Lounge, The Shondes and The Musical Stones of Skiddaw. He is a member of the Raymond Scott Orchestrette, a group dedicated to reinterpreting Scott's compositions, and appeared on their 2002 album Pushbutton Parfait. He also composes and performs with the Patient Island Singers, a project loosely centered around the topic of Roosevelt Island. He was an original member of the Blue Man Group Tubes house band, for whom he composed musical scores. He later sued the group for authorship claims, and eventually prevailed in court. Dewan's 2007 album Words Of Wisdom (Eschatone Records) was the first in a series of folk archival recordings called the Humanitarium Series. Each record in the