| Dean Omori | |||||
| Birth Name: | Dean Francis Bedwell | ||||
| Birth Date: | 5 July 1968 | ||||
| Years Active: | 1993–present | ||||
| Spouse: | Rachel Omori | ||||
| Children: | Two | ||||
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Dean Omori (born Dean Francis Bedwell, 5 July 1968) is an English singer-songwriter, poet and producer. Omori is the Japanese word for "big forest".
His work addresses human rights, war, environment, prejudice and philosophical issues. Omori is the founder of The Art of Protest, an organisation set up to encourage protest through art and music.[1]
Born in Great Yarmouth, an eastern English seaside town that saw an influx of Italian immigrants in the 1930s and 1940s, one of whom was Omori's mother. He began guitar lessons at the age of 6 but was not a natural. He said he never really could understand the point of playing other peoples music.
In 2006, Omori wrote the songs that would eventually make up his first album Ten War Songs. In the following years wrote, performed and produced 14 albums and began making short films to accompany his music. In 2008 the World Wide Fund for nature (WWF) awarded him best film and music for How Can You Sleep.[2] His songs' lyrics have been translated into French, Spanish and Japanese. In 2010, Omori was discovered by Malcolm Holmes of OMD and signed to the label Fin Music. His music and film Censorship Burns The Books Nobody Reads was used by Freemuse to help support their cause, highlighting the persecution of artists and musicians around the world.[3]
In 2011, he was invited to write the music celebrating Amnesty International's 50th year, which was released in May and has toured supporting their cause. In 2016, his album 'Got Daddy Gone' was written for War Child to draw attention to the ongoing war in Syria.
In 2013, he left his record company to independently release a new album Sean Penn. After the split he has remained an independent artist with full control to write, perform, produce and record all of his material.