Dean Calin

Dean Calin is the founder of Bounding Main, having assembled a group of talented environmental theater performers in 2003. Dean invited members based on showmanship and personality, not being musically skilled enough to assemble a group by vocal range. This has forced the music director to wrestle complex arrangements out of two tenors, two altos and a baritone for a bulk of their years together – a talented and hard-working group, indeed. All of the members are skilled improvisationalists so in addition to their well-known arrangements they are a humorous group between songs, too.

Dean performed at both environmental and conventional theaters and theme parks in the Chicago area from the 70s through the 00s as an actor, writer and director, with a smattering of experience in costuming and stage combat. While he had previously sung for acting roles, his departure as a vocalist with Bounding Main was a welcome opportunity.

As a sales and marketing professional in the commercial aerospace industry he was able to apply his skills to develop and maintain the Bounding Main website and to identify and book most of the group’s gigs since 2003.

Until his retirement after the death of his wife, Dean was a consultant in the commercial aerospace industry, developing distribution lines, designing maintenance platforms for aircraft and managing the company’s marketing. He also did freelance marketing and IT work.  His current project is building the Maritime Music Directory International, a web portal that aggregates information about the world’s maritime music groups and the venues at which they perform.