Ben Neill (born November 14, 1957) is an American composer, trumpeter, producer, and educator. He is the inventor of the "Mutantrumpet", a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument.
Ben Neill (born November 14, 1957) is an American composer, trumpeter, producer, and educator. He is the inventor of the "Mutantrumpet", a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument.
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Neill was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His early studies included the North Carolina School of the Arts and Eastern Music Festival. He attended the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University, where he earned Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees. In 1983 he moved to New York City, and earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from Manhattan School of Music. He also studied privately with La Monte Young and was mentored by Jon Hassell. Since 2008 he has been a music professor at Ramapo College of New Jersey. [1]
Neill invented the Mutantrumpet, a trumpet equipped with extra bells and valves [2] as well as electrical modifications that allow him to control computer variables with his playing. The first Mutantrumpet (1981) had three bells, six valves, a trombone slide and an analog processing system custom built by synthesizer inventor Robert Moog. In 1985 he first travelled to Amsterdam's Steim Studios to develop a new, MIDI-capable Mutantrumpet; the upgrade resulted in the advances in the number of switches, knobs, and pressure-sensitive pads allowing the player to trigger and modify a variety of sounds and sequences, as well as lights and projections. David Behrman also designed a computer program to facilitate Neill's live performances. In 2008, Neill completed a new version of his instrument during another residency at STEIM. In 2014, he returned to Amsterdam to design V4, which made its debut in 2019. [3]
In 1984, Neill completed Orbs, his first significant composition for Mutantrumpet, percussion, and audiovisual projections; other early pieces include 1985's Mainspring, 1987's Money Talk, and 1988's Abblasen House, composed for an ensemble of brass, electric guitar, and percussion. ITSOFOMO (In the Shadow of Forward Motion) is a major multimedia work created in collaboration with visual artist David Wojnarowicz in 1989.
Neill was the Music Curator of the N.Y.C. performance space The Kitchen from 1992 to 1999, a position which served to spark his interest into the burgeoning electronic music scene. Neill then began increasingly incorporating electronic influences into his work.
Neill's music has been recorded on the Universal/Verve, Astralwerks, Thirsty Ear, Six Degrees, Ramseur, New Tone and Ear-Rational labels. In 1996, he contributed to the AIDS benefit album Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip , produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1999, he was included in the Wired magazine compilation Music Futurists. He has collaborated with DJ Spooky, David Wojnarowicz, Page Hamilton, Mimi Goese and Nicolas Collins, and performed on albums by David Behrman, John Cale and Rhys Chatham.
In 2010, his music theater work Persephone, a collaboration with Mimi Goese, Warren Leight and Ridge Theater featuring Julia Stiles, was presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival. [4] The music from the production was released as a CD as Songs for Persephone on Ramseur Records in 2011.
The Demo, an electronic opera co-created with composer Mikel Rouse and based on Douglas Engelbart's 1968 demonstration of early computer technology (called "The Mother of All Demos"), was premiered in 2015 at the Bing Concert Hall at Stanford University. [5] [6] [7]
Neill has performed his music extensively in a wide variety of international settings [8] including the Big Ears Festival 2019, Lincoln Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, Getty Museum, Moogfest 2011, Cité de la Musique in France, the Berlin Love Parade in Germany, the Festival dei Due Mondi and Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy, the Bang on a Can festival in New York, the Istanbul Jazz Festival in Turkey, the Institute of Contemporary Arts and Edinburgh Festival in the UK, and NIME conferences (in 2005, 2006, 2010 and 2013) The Sci-Fi Lounge, his collaboration with DJ Spooky and Emergency Broadcast Network, toured America and Europe in 1997. His 2002 album Automotive (Six Degrees) was an early example of the convergence of content and commerce; [9] the album is composed entirely of extended versions of music he originally wrote for Volkswagen TV and Internet commercials.
Neill collaborated with visual artist Bill Jones to create Palladio, an interactive movie based on Jonathan Dee’s 2002 novel of the same name. Palladio premiered in 2005 at the New Territories Festival in Glasgow, Scotland, and at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space in New York City.
Neill is also active as a sound and installation artist. His collaborative works with Bill Jones have been exhibited in museums and galleries including Exit Art, the American Museum of Natural History and the Sandra Gering Gallery in New York, and the Wellcome Gallery in London. Neill’s installation/performance "Green Machine" was shown at the Paula Cooper Gallery in 1994. In the Shadow of Forward Motion, his major collaborative piece with the late artist David Wojnarowicz, has been exhibited and screened in venues such as the New Museum, Tate Modern in the UK, and PPOW Gallery in New York. It was featured in the PBS documentary Imagining America .
He began his teaching career in 2007 as a professor of music technology at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). As of 2021, he is currently a professor of music industry and production at Ramapo College, also in New Jersey.
Paul Dennis Miller, known professionally as DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is an American electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, record producer, philosopher, and author. He borrowed his stage name from the character The Subliminal Kid in the novel Nova Express by William S. Burroughs. Having studied philosophy and French literature at Bowdoin College, he has become a professor of Music Mediated Art at the European Graduate School and is the executive editor of Origin magazine.
Mikel Rouse is an American composer. He has been associated with a Downtown New York City movement known as totalism, and is best known for his operas, including Dennis Cleveland, about a television talk show host, which Rouse wrote and starred in.
David Michael Wojnarowicz was an American painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, songwriter/recording artist, and AIDS activist prominent in the East Village art scene. He incorporated personal narratives influenced by his struggle with AIDS as well as his political activism in his art until his death from the disease in 1992.
David Behrman is an American composer and a pioneer of computer music. In the early 1960s he was the producer of Columbia Records' Music of Our Time series, which included the first recording of Terry Riley's In C. In 1966 Behrman co-founded Sonic Arts Union with fellow composers Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier and Gordon Mumma. He wrote the music for Merce Cunningham's dances Walkaround Time (1968), Rebus (1975), Pictures (1984) and Eyespace 40 (2007). In 1978, he released his debut album On the Other Ocean, a pioneering work combining computer music with live performance.
Nicolas Collins is a composer of mostly electronic music, a sound artist and writer. He received his BA and MA from Wesleyan University, and his PhD from the University of East Anglia. Upon graduating from Wesleyan, he was a Watson Fellow.
Trimpin is a German born kinetic sculptor, sound artist, and musician currently living in Seattle and Tieton, Washington.
Thirsty Ear Recordings is an American independent record label. It was founded in the late 1970s as a marketing company for the then-unnamed alternative music field, and expanded to issue its own records in 1990.
Mimi Goese is an American professional musician.
STEIM was a center for research and development of new musical instruments in the electronic performing arts, located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Beginning in the 1970's, STEIM became known as a pioneering center for electronic music, where the specific context of electronic music was always strongly related to the physical and direct actions of a musician. In this tradition, STEIM supported artists in residence such as composers and performers, but also multimedia and video artists, helping them to develop setups which allowed for bespoke improvisation and performance with individually designed technology.
James Romberger is an American artist known for his depictions of New York City's Lower East Side.
Michel Waisvisz was a Dutch composer, performer and inventor of experimental electronic musical instruments. He was the artistic director of STEIM in Amsterdam from 1981, where he collaborated with musicians and artists from all over the world.
Bill Jones is a photographer, installation artist, performer and writer living in Los Angeles, CA. His work is concerned with light as both a physical phenomenon and a metaphorical figure. Jones was part of the Vancouver School of conceptual photography, along with such artists as Rodney Graham, Ian Wallace and Jeff Wall. Jones has three daughters; his youngest daughter is actress and screenwriter Zoe Lister-Jones. He is married to visual artist and writer Joy Garnett.
Hugo Largo was an American musical group formed in 1984, known for their unique lineup: two bass guitars, a violin and singer/performance artist Mimi Goese. Their sound has been characterized as art rock, dream pop, ambient and avant-rock.
John Stephen Richards is a British musician and composer working in the field of electronic music. Since 1999, he has predominantly explored performing with self-made instruments and creating interactive environments for composition.
Ron Kuivila is an American sound artist from Boston, MA. He is primarily known for his sound installations, performances, and recorded materials that make use of computers, and for his contributions to the SuperCollider audio programming language.
This is a discography for electronic and experimental hip hop musician DJ Spooky. It lists studio albums, singles, EPs, collaborations, sideman appearances and albums released under his given name Paul D. Miller.
Marina Rosenfeld is an American composer, sound artist and visual artist based in New York City. Her work has been produced and presented by the Park Avenue Armory, Museum of Modern Art, Portikus (Frankfurt), Donaueschinger Musiktage, and such international surveys as documenta 14 and the Montreal, Liverpool, PERFORMA, and Whitney biennials, among many others. She has performed widely as an improvising turntablist, and served as co-chair of Music/Sound in the MFA program at the Milton Avery School of the Arts, Bard College, from 2007 to 2020. She has also taught at Harvard, Yale, Brooklyn College, and Dartmouth.
Roderick Schrock is an arts executive and curator. He has been the Executive Director at Eyebeam since July, 2015.
Laetitia Sonami, is a sound artist, performer, and composer of interactive electronic music who has been based in the San Francisco Bay area since 1978. She is known for her electronic compositions and performances with the ‘’Lady’s Glove’’, an instrument she developed for triggering and manipulating sound in live performance. Many of her compositions include live or sampled text. Sonami also creates sound installation work incorporating household objects embedded with mechanical and electronic components. Although some recordings of her works exist, Sonami generally eschews releasing recorded work.
Ben Rubin is a media artist and designer based in New York City. He is best known for his data-driven media installations and public artworks, including Listening Post and Moveable Type, both created in collaboration with statistician and journalism professor Mark Hansen. Since 2015, Rubin has served as the director of the Center for Data Arts at The New School, where he is an associate professor of design.
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