University at Buffalo, Music Composition
University of Arizona, Master of Music: Composition
Washington Square College: New York University, Bachelor of Arts: Music and Philosophy

I studied music and philosophy at New York University, and after graduation studied composition with Paul Alan Levi and oboe with Lois Wann. At the same time, I was becoming immersed in the East Village post-punk art and music scene of the early 1980s, recording an album with Robin Crutchfield’s Dark Day that has been hailed as a precursor of the “minimal wave” genre.

As conditions in New York evolved from the scruffy, affordable 80s toward the go-go, Wall Street 90s, I took my downtown DIY attitude to Tucson, Arizona, where I formed noisy bands that toured the west coast, organized experimental music festivals, and rekindled my interest in composition. While studying and analyzing the music of Xenakis and Ligeti, I became interested in computer-assisted composition and algorithmic music and spent a formative summer at Stanford University’s CCRMA. Back in Tucson, I enrolled at the University of Arizona, where I earned a Master’s degree in music, studying composition with Daniel Asia.

Pursuing a further advanced degree, I chose to move to Buffalo to attend the University at Buffalo and study composition and electronic music. UB at that time had one of the few composition departments in the country where experimental, conceptual, and downright avant-garde work was still encouraged. I studied composition with Cort Lippe, and then with Jeffrey Stadelman, who became my dissertation advisor. At the same time, I was auditing physical computing classes taught by Marc Böhlen in the Department of Media Study and learning to program microcontrollers to interface between computers and the physical world. Much of my later work at UB involved homemade and purpose-built ‘robotic’ instruments which were controlled by a combination of sensor information and non-deterministic programming. Since earning a PhD at UB, my composition work has mainly been in the field of gallery and museum installation, and my pieces have been included in exhibitions in Buffalo and a solo show at the University of New Haven.

I am still an active performer on electric guitar and electronic instruments, and an avid improviser. In the past few decades I’ve had the great fortune of being able to play regularly with some very talented and skilled musicians, including Will Redman, Steve Baczkowski, Todd Whitman, Carter Williams, Jonathan Golove, and Jim Abramson.

Parallel to my artistic practice, I co-founded Electroskip LLC, a company to develop and market a device to aid in gait retraining that is in use in clinics across New York state. More information about Electroskip can be found at www.electroskip.com