Dessner has collaborated with artists such as Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, Jonny Greenwood, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Terry Riley, Justin Peck, Ragnar Kjartansson, Katia and Marielle Labèque, and Taylor Swift, among others.
In 2018, Dessner was named one of eight creative and artistic partners for the San Francisco Symphony as part of incoming Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen's new leadership model for the orchestra in 2020.
Other compositions include: His work, Murder Ballades, was inspired by American folk music and written for the multiple Grammy-winning new-music ensemble eighth blackbird.
His evening-length oratorio Triptych (Eyes of One on Another) includes libretto by Korde Arrington Tuttle and poems by Patti Smith and Essex Hemphill, featuring vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, soprano Alicia Hall Moran, tenor Isaiah Thomas and dancer/choreographer Martell Ruffin, and combining 16th-century madrigals, blues and post-modern musical influences.
It explored the work of the photographer through the lens of its African-American subjects via Tuttle's deeply personal view of the contradictions and inherent racism within the artist's adoration and deification of the Black body, often eluding its humanism.
The ballet, Frame of Mind, choreographed by Sydney Dance Company's Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela and featuring Dessner's string quartet compositions Aheym and Tenebre, has been toured all over the world and has won several Helpmann Awards.
Performed by the Copenhagen Philharmonic and conducted by Andre de Ridder, the album features three of Dessner's orchestral works (St. Carolyn by the Sea, Lachrimae and Raphael) as well as the suite from There Will Be Blood by Jonny Greenwood.
Also in spring 2019, New York's Metropolitan Museum, for one of its first contemporary installations, featured the song Death is Elsewhere written by Bryce alongside Aaron Dessner, Ragnar Kjartansson, Gyda Valtýsdóttir and Kristín Anna.
[8] In October 2015, Dessner was tapped along with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto, to compose the score for the Oscar Award-winning director Alejandro González Iñárritu film The Revenant (2015).
Dessner is a frequent collaborator with many respected artists, including Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Alejandro Iñarritú, Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens, Caroline Shaw, Johnny Greenwood, Bon Iver, Justin Peck, Jennifer Koh, Kelley O'Connor, Ragnar Kjartansson and Nico Muhly.
Planetarium has been performed at the Barbican Centre in London, Muziektheater in Amsterdam, the Sydney Opera House in Australia, Salle Pleyel in Paris and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in April 2013, where it had a four-night run.
[11] "The Long Count" was a large commission for the BAM Next Wave Festival created by Bryce, Aaron Dessner and visual artist Matthew Ritchie.
[17] The piece Dessner wrote, Aheym, (meaning "homeward" in Yiddish), was inspired by his Jewish immigrant grandparents who settled near the park when they arrived in Brooklyn.
The compilation is a wide-ranging tribute to the songwriting and experimentalism of the Dead which took four years to record, features over 60 artists from varied musical backgrounds, 59 tracks and is almost 6 hours long.
Day of the Dead features collaborations and recordings from a diverse group of artists including Wilco, Flaming Lips, Bruce Hornsby, Justin Vernon, The National, The War on Drugs, Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo, Jenny Lewis, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Perfume Genius, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Senegalese collective Orchestra Baobob, composer Terry Riley and his son Gyan Riley, electronic artist Tim Hecker, jazz pianist Vijay Iyer and Bela Fleck.
Of the 59 tracks on the compilation, many feature a house band made up of Bryce, Aaron, fellow The National bandmates and brothers Scott and Bryan Devendorf, Josh Kaufman (who co-produced the project), and Conrad Doucette along with Sam Cohen and Walter Martin.
In 2018 Dessner's extended collaboration with pianists Katia and Marielle Làbeque formalized into Dream House Quartet with the addition of guitarist and composer David Chalmin of La Terre Invisible, realizing a unique arrangement of duo piano and electric guitar.
On April 23, 2023, the Quartet made its US premiere at New York City's The Town Hall in a concert benefitting The Kitchen, followed by engagements in Austin, San Diego, Costa Mesa, Los Angeles, Stanford, Toronto, and New Haven in a tour produced by ArKtype, performing works by Dessner, Chalmin, Glass, Reich and Meredith Monk.
In 2020, Bryce composed orchestrations for Taylor Swift's eighth studio album, Folklore, which was produced and co-written by his brother Aaron Dessner.
He was tapped to curate 'Mountains and Waves,' a weekend celebration of his music at the Barbican in London, May 2015, with guests including Steve Reich, eighth blackbird, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Sō Percussion, Caroline Shaw, and the Britten Sinfonia.
As the festival grew and established itself as an important annual cultural event, Dessner continued to curate line-ups that featured risk-taking artists who do not fit neatly into genre-defined categories.
The year's festival included performances from Lone Bellow, Mina Tindle, Perfume Genius, The National, Sō Percussion, Butt Nothings, Will Butler, and many others.
In honor of the ten-year anniversary the festival also released "MusicNOW – 10 Years," a compilation album collecting live recordings of some of the best performances the series has seen over the past decade.
The inaugural weekend featured performances by Shara Worden's My Brightest Diamond, celebrated English organist James McVinnie, Sō Percussion, and Mina Tindle.
It also featured a collaboration between Bryce, Aaron Dessner, Marcel Dzama, Lisa Hannigan, members of internationally renowned new music group Crash Ensemble and virtuosic Canadian violinist, Yuki Numata Resnick.
A myriad of other musicians played in venues around the city across the weekend, as well as the festival featuring Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson presenting his piece "Guilt Trip" at the Crawford Art Gallery from the 14 to the 16th of September.
The festival featured 80 artists, including Bon Iver, Mouse on Mars' Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner, Erlend Øye, My Brightest Diamond's Shara Nova, Lisa Hannigan, Damien Rice, Woodkid, Boysnoize, Beirut and many more.
The inaugural festival took place May 3–5, 2012 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and included performances by the Walkmen, St. Vincent, Beirut, The Antlers, yMusic and Jherek Bischoff, as well as newly commissioned films by Jonas Mekas, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tunde Adebimpe, among others.
Additionally, Bryce orchestrated tracks on Local Natives' Hummingbird (2013) and Sharon van Etten's Tramp (2012), both of which were produced by his brother Aaron Dessner.
Alongside Alec Hanley Bemis and Aaron Dessner, Bryce founded Brassland Records, a label that has released early albums from The National, Clogs, Doveman and Nico Muhly.