VISHWANATH_GI
“Music exploration that relates to Architecture in its structure and spatial construction, Painting with sounds colors and Poetry with its message of consonance and dissonance.”
Italian-born Gianni Intili has been involved with the fine arts throughout
his life. Starting as a painter, color theorist, sculptor and poet, he would
infuse his art into architecture, planning and interior design. As a teen, Hendrix guitar riffs and distortions were music to GI; the sound of the Moog as played by Keith Emerson, ecstasy. Jazz Rock Fusion, Prog
Rock and Electronic Music, was the music he enjoyed and transmitted in his radio show at FDU 440 AM College Radio. He wanted to play an instrument, but it was not until his early 50’s that he got his first Yamaha keyboard. Guided by many of his seasoned musician friends, that he jammed and learned improvisation. Then he started learning Music and Piano under the tutelage of Andrew Kadin. GI played with Sparse, an Avant-garde Abstract Quartet who played the MusiXplore Summer Solstice Concert in Paterson NJ, along with ATONAL, Symmetry and ArtCrime. And other side projects like the ‘NONAME’ Trio, the duets of Bellagio and Tremezzo. Gianni is currently involved in a new collaboration ’LA ELECTRONICA‘ with Mario-Enrique Paoli, ‘CANOPUS RESONANCE’ with Ed Clark Cornell, and ME! Aka MONTCLAIR ELECTRIC! with Simon Pride.
https://www.youtube.com/@Giannett0
Girl with Octopus Mesmerizing Visuals
Girl with Octopus is known for her legendary visual composition to the music of her partner David Berends. Friends call her Emily, who has become a major actor of NEEM Fest since 2018, and has performed visuals for other performing artist at NEEM Fest 2024.
BOB LUKOMSKI
“Music for Voice and Electronics – contemporary art song and instrumental performance”
Symmetry
Symmetry is an audio-visual artist that blends electronic music and ambient sound with futuristic imagery.
It takes listeners on an emotional journey through dark, industrial rhythms with syncopated noise, captivating soundscapes, and rich textures. A celebration of symmetry in music, blending art and technology seamlessly. Immerse yourself in this unique experience and travel to the farthest reaches of sonic space.
Twyndyllyngs
Twyndyllyngs are an electronic music chamber ensemble playing spacemusic that is suitable for everything from planetarium presentations to deep inner thought explorations. This duo consists of Howard Moscovitz and Bill Fox. They have been performing improvised electronic chamber music together since 2003. They have performed at electronic music festivals in Europe and North America. They perform weekly on the internet radio station electro-music.com. Twyndyllyngs’ experimental work is in many diverse styles ranging from neoclassical to experimental.
Federico Balducci
“…a mixture of classical and ambient music with unusually intricate harmonies.”
The music of Puerto Rican guitarist and composer Federico Balducci can be described as a mixture of classical and ambient music with unusually intricate harmonies. Federico has a Bachelor’s Degree in Film Scoring from the prestigious Berklee College of Music. Currently, Federico mostly works on film score for short films and documentaries.
Thomas Bruce
Where to begin? Well, let’s start at the beginning. I was born at a Seventh-Day Adventist hospital in Bethesda, MD; my mom was mad because they wouldn’t give her any coffee. That was in 1954; in 1957, we came up to Ithaca so my father could finish his master’s degree at Cornell. We moved up here permanently in 1960 so that my father could finish his PhD, after which he was immediately hired by Cornell’s Rural Education Department.
Ithaca was a good place to be in those days. The city was growing so rapidly that there was a shortage of housing. I don’t remember much about elementary school or junior high; by the time I got to high school, there was a great music department led by Ron Socciarelli, who later became chair of the University of Michigan’s music department. Those were great days to be doing music at the high school; we played Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Winds” (damn difficult to play) and Karel Husa’s “Music for Prague” (Husa was in the Cornell Music department at that point, and I took French from his wife; two of his daughters were roughly the same age as me). We did Warren Benson’s “Solitary Dancer”, which featured Jack Kripl. Jack later became a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble, and ended up playing in the pit for “Got Tu Go Disco”.
“Got Tu Go Disco” was a complete scam. It closed as close to opening as the Actor’s Equity rules would allow. I helped load it out, after which I called a friend of mine who at the time ran Hudson Scenic and asked him what was going on with it. He told me,”Look at the list of suppliers. Are there any that you’ve heard of before?” I said, “No, I haven’t.”. He said, “How many of the names end in a?”. I said, “All of them.” He then told me, “The whole thing was a money laundry for the Mob – obviously, they all saw ‘The Producers’, and realized that nobody ever looks at the books on a show that flops”. At one point during the load-out, another stagehand yelled at the top of his lungs, “Excuse me please, I am just trying to woik heeah!”, something which has remained my motto ever since.
I went to Yale as an undergraduate. There was, at that time, no theater major, and I forget what discipline I ultimately ended up getting my degree in. I did, however, work for the Yale Rep as an electrician, and learned quite a lot about lighting design from Bill Warfel, who at that time ran the lighting program in the Drama School. I learned a huge amount from him. I worked for a student-run concert series in Woolsey Hall (Yale’s largest auditorium). At one point, Weather Report was playing there, and Bob Devere – their road manager – was apparently impressed with what I’d done, and asked if I could tour with them. I said, “Well, you’re going to have to wait until I graduate”, which I actually did in 3-½ years instead of the usual four. After that, I toured with Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Miles Davis.
I got my MFA from the Yale Drama School, where I taught courses in PL/I. The first job I ever got paid for – which came from Bill McManus, who ran a road show for touring artists in Philadelphia – was calculating the sag and strain on a cable under continuous load. The load in question was the backdrop for the 1978 Queen tour. Many years later, after I had started working at Cornell, I was on an advisory committee with David Gries, who was the co-author of the PL/1 textbook I used. “David”, I said, “you might be interested to know that your textbook was used at the Yale Drama School”. David said, “Why would a bunch of actors need to know about computer programming?”. Realizing that this was a lost cause, I said, “Well, that’s just the kind of place it was, David”.
My MFA thesis show was a production of a chamber version of “Mahagonny”, with a director who thought the best approach was to set the actors at one another’s throats, with the result that he got punched out by one of the actresses. After that, I worked all over the country. I worked at the Spoleto Festival for 3 years, the first time it had been held in this country. I worked for the touring wing of Houston Grand Opera, at the American Repertory Theater, Miami Opera (now Florida Grand Opera). In the years between 1980 and 1987, I worked all over the country (in 1984, I ended up paying state income tax in 11 states). I ended up back in Miami, where I started doing industrial shows, which were great, because they paid a LOT of money.
In 1987, I came back to Ithaca, where I worked for the Cornell Law School as a computer maintenance guy. I also wrote the first web browser for Microsoft Windows, called Cello – because there was another browser called “Viola”, and because I had a former girlfriend who was a cellist. In 1992, Peter Martin and I co-founded the Legal Information Institute (LII), where I worked until 2019. Peter went back to regular teaching in 2004, leaving me in charge of the LII. I retired in 2019; upon hearing the news of this, Peter Shane remarked in a post on Facebook, “I doubt there has ever been a more innovative figure in legal education or anyone who has done more to render law and its mysterious processes transparent to the public who law governs.” ( I thought it was kind of overdone, but…)
Since retirement, I ran an antique tool business – now shut down. I built a number of things in our house – four wooden chairs with rush seats, a number of tables and chairs including one we use in the dining room, and a seven drawer Shaker chest for my wife, all by hand in that case ( I think I bought the knobs online somewhere – the only thing I didn’t make). I’ve built chairs for Bob Wilson’s Watermill Center. I also spend a lot of time playing electronic music, mostly collaborating via the Internet using an application called Sonobus. In November, I did a multi-city tour with my friend Charles Shriner; we actually stayed in the same hotel in New York where, about a month later, the CEO of United Health was shot.
My wife and I now have 3 cockatiels – the older two are now about 24 years old (they can live to thirty), and the new guy, George, is quite unusual – he actually imitates us, and has learned to say, “Hi, George”, “Hi, cute bird”, etc. etc.
In 2020, my friend Rob Snyder and I won fourth prize in a competition for music produced via the Internet (another band I was in was a runner-up in that same competition). A video using the music that won us fourth prize is here.
In 2024, I was inducted into “Who’s Who in America”.
And there you have it……
Worst Night Ever
“Ambient soundtrack nothings using a combination of found sounds, generated sounds, and really old sounds…”
Worst Night Ever (Arthur Fleischmann and Daniel Giachetti) have been making music together since they were in grade school. Our past musical projects have won the 33 1/3 book series song contest, performed at the CMJ music festival, and participated in Jon Batiste’s American Symphony at Carnegie Hall. They create “Ambient soundtrack nothings” using a combination of found sounds, generated sounds, and really old sounds no one cares about anymore to create tracks and noise suitable for dark journeys.
https://worstnightever.bandcamp.com/
Joe B. Wall
Stand-up autobiography accompanied by abstract live soundtrack.
Rober Dorschel
Robert Dorschel is one of those nondescript GenXers that does work and stuff to get by, but thoroughly enjoys tinkering in music composition and gear-touching as his all-encompassing pro-hobby.
Robert also was a former organizer of NEEMFest (2017-2019). One could suppose that Robert also has plenty more to add here, “but that’s looking backwards,” said Robert. Robert is an old-fart multi-instrumentalist who never settled into any one particular genre or style. What Robert does do onstage for giggles is perform structured songs with a twist of oddball sense of humor, whilst attempting to do the trigger-video-by-MIDI thing, whereas the video content tends to have a moralistic twist. Perhaps. Also, there will be cake. Maybe.
Most of Robert’s musical catalog is either floating around on old deleted websites, 20+ year old CDs, and occasionally these sites:
https://www.youtube.com/robertdorschel
https://soundcloud.com/robertdorschel
https://robertdorschel.bandcamp.com/
David Berends
…structured and somewhat improvised tonal, octatonic and atonal pieces heavy on looped layers and soaring solos…
Composer, pianist and electronic musician David Berends received his formal musical training at the Peabody Conservatory, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and the Westminster Choir College. His informal training came though countless rock, jazz, fusion and solo piano gigs with various artists including prog rockers Tank, jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan, Rock’n’Roll legend Chuck Berry, New Wave band The Name, jazz ensemble The Jack Furlong Quartet, and piano jazz group The Jersey Jazz Trio. David Berends will perform somewhat structured and somewhat improvised tonal, octatonic and atonal pieces heavy on looped layers and soaring solos. Pieces will be accompanied by an eclectic group of videos curated and edited by visual artist Wei-Hwei Su a.k.a. Girl with Octopus
Neon.bev.click
Neon.bev.click conducts sonic explorations with a groovebox and pocket music devices, creating intensely emotional, swirling, beat-driven jams.
After winning a Pocket Operator drum machine at a raffle during the NorthEast Electro-Music Festival, electronic musician Bev Stanton was propelled towards a new musical direction improvising with small machines as opposed to producing tracks on a computer. The brains of her outfit is an MC-303 groovebox she bought in the late 90s that she has retr0brighted for the occasion. Performing DAWless live sets keeps Stanton in the inspiration part of the creative process and provides the tactile sensation that is sometimes missing when working in recording software.
Quantum Bingo
“…the definite uncertainty and undetermined order…”
Quantum Bingo is an improvised collaboration between Karl Fury and Rich Kennicutt. Karl’s improvised style of electronic music utilizes hardware and software synths, noise boxes, and guitar. Rich’s Berlin School approach uses hardware groove boxes, hardware synths, samples, and sequences. Together they are the definite uncertainty and undetermined order that is Quantum Bingo. Karl Fury is a multi-instrumentalist and composer from New Jersey. His musical background ranges from rock to jazz, world music, ambient, electronic and free improvisation. He has performed at numerous venues including the Trenton Avant Garde Festival, Artworks, the Cosmic Crossings and Event Horizon concert series, NEEMfest, EEEMfest, Mountain Skies 19, Columbia and Princeton University and live radio broadcasts from WPRB, WTSR , WDVR and WLFR. He performed and recorded for several years in the world music duo Near East and the electronic music trio The Melting Transistor. He continues to collaborate and record with the Equinox Project an improvisational electronic music trio. Karl also collaborates with Dr Brad Garton from Columbia University, NYC, on an irregular basis. Karl is also involved in three new musical duos, Beard Farm with Tom Bruce, Oblique Strategists with Mario-enrigue Paoli and Quantum Elf with Floyd Bledsoe. He also records and performs solo as both Karl Fury and Tars Obscura and currently has a solo release on the da/73 label. Karl plays a number of different stringed instruments, electronic controllers such as the Linnstrument and the Sensel Morph, homemade noise boxes, and utilizes computers and the Ipad as sound sources and processors in his music.
Rich Kennicutt (Finite Element), a keyboard-based electronic musician from upstate NY. Rich’s music is a blend of 70’s style berlin school, ambient, dark ambient, industrial, and minimalist new age. Influences include Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Ashra, Brian Eno, and Michael Hoenig.
Finite Element
Finite Element is Rich Kennicutt, a keyboard-based electronic musician from upstate NY. Rich’s music is a blend of 70’s style berlin school, ambient, dark ambient, industrial, and minimalist new age. Influences include Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Ashra, Brian Eno, and Michael Hoenig.
https://finiteelement.bandcamp.com
Andrew Koenig
Andrew Koenig’s musical tastes are relentlessly eclectic. In addition to being a NEEM Fest regular, he has recently been performing with the Chester (NJ) Baroque Orchestra and is a long-standing member of the Early Music Players of New Jersey. He has also played with a variety of impromptu rock, jazz, and folk ensembles. His main instruments are MIDI wind controllers, bass, guitar, and (in Baroque and early-music contexts) recorders and capped reeds (krummhorn, kortholt, etc.) The music he plays at NEEM Fest typically starts with a sound palette and an overall structure, and then consists of improvization within that palette and structure. It is based on classical notions of harmony and rhythm, but expressed in ways that can only be realized electronically.
Johnny Tomasiello
“Deriving Synchrony: A Real Time Interactive Brainwave-to-Music Translation System.”
Johnny Tomasiello is a dedicated transdisciplinary artist and composer-researcher, with a deep interest in expanded conceptualizations of sound and time. His work employs methodologies across media, and is informed by research into neuroscience, psychophysics and biofeedback. Focused on the relationship between perception and the mechanics of physiology, his immersive works, compositions, and performances reveal otherwise invisible processes in physiological and technological systems. His artistic explorations frequently lead to formalized research, creating a mutual exchange between science and artworks. Drawing on custom-built instruments and software, his work references mechanisms of expression and experience through data sonification, biofeedback, and reciprocal physiological systems.
As a performer, Tomasiello has produced live immersive performances and lectures featuring his visual and sound works. His work has been presented worldwide at institutions and festivals, and have been supported by, Ircam, NYU, Liquid Sky Music, modularsquare, Kunsthall Gallery, Masa7a Gallery, and Backslash.lit, among others.
He holds an MS in Digital Imaging and Design from NYU and a BS in Psychophysics from Rutgers/UMDNJ, as well as the completion of the thesis program in Electronic Music composition and Production, and a fine arts foundation with emphasis in painting, from Maryland Institute, College of Art (MICA). Tomasiello continues his work in interactive computer-assisted compositional performance systems and Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) that create, manipulate, and deconstruct audio and visuals, as well as physiological responses. He has lectured on the subject, staged live performances, scored films, and shown canvases and sound works in galleries and at institutions around the world.
This performance will be part of my larger ongoing project “Deriving Synchrony: A Real Time Interactive Brainwave-to-Music Translation System”. It is a generative and interactive work whose primary purpose is to explore the reciprocal relationship between electrical activity in the brain and external stimuli that has been generated and defined by those same physiological events, through use of a Brain-Computer Music Interface (BCMI). This methodology allows for the sonification of the data captured by an electroencephalogram, which is translated into musical stimuli in real time.
The project can be expressed in multiple ways. It can help teach participants how to affect a positive change in their own physiology, by learning to influence various functions of the autonomic nervous system through neurofeedback.
It also functions as an interactive computer-assisted compositional and performance system that translates electrical activity in the brain into musical compositions in real time, while allowing the user intentional control over this translation process, and the resulting generative sonic output within a musical framework.
When used as a compositional and/or live performance system, with practice, the user can exploit the brainwave mappings to purposefully change the content and dynamics of the musical feedback. So this system then expands beyond a dynamic proving ground for influencing your own physiology, and becomes a powerful and effective real-time generative system for writing and performing live music.
This piece will be the latest example of the system in use. He has also recently used this project to score a feature length film. That process involved recording the musical feedback generated by my brainwaves, in real-time, as he watched the film for the first time. This captured a visceral physiological and emotional response to the film as it was viewed, providing a personal score directly related to the experience of watching it. For NEEMfest this year, He will be crating both a live generative soundtrack and accompanying visuals, as extension of the system’s use as a narrative and storytelling device.
Datadrift
“Organic life transmuted into soundscapes.”
James Spitznagel
“Ambient soundscapes and imaginary soundtracks.”
James Spitznagel has been working in the visual arts and music fields for the last 50 years. His recent digital music explorations are part of a cohesive artistic statement that stretches the imagined uses synths, iPads and gaming devices to fit his abstract vision of thoughts, dreams, and reality
Dimension Step
“Atmospheric, soundtrack style music ranging from ambient noise, synth textures and melodic performing and improvisation.”
Dimension Step is the synth based version of Dorety Brothers Music. We are influenced and have produced CDs/collections of our music in the Prog genre, think Genesis, YES and ELP among others as well as heavier rock like Rush and some more progressive metal bands. Our initial introduction to improvisational jamming was, in fact, heavily synth involved and often produced ambient and atmospheric sounds. One such fellow jammer from that time is Juan Garces, who has participated at NEEM, Event Horizons at The Rotunda and Cosmic Crossings. We combine modular synths, classic and modern synths, piano and some voice to bring our visions to life.