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Ben Neill

Composer/performer Ben Neill is the inventor of the Mutantrumpet, a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument, and is recognized as a musical innovator who blends acoustic instrument performance with digital technologies to create “art music for the people” (Wired Magazine). Through his use of interactive computer technologies, Neill creates immersive musical and visual experiences, melding the worlds of electronic music, minimalism and visual media.

Fourteen albums of Neill’s music have been released on labels including Six Degrees, Universal/Verve, Thirsty Ear, Astralwerks, and his own Blue Math label distributed by AWAL/Sony. Performances include BAM Next Wave Festival, Big Ears Festival, Lincoln Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, Bing Concert Hall at Stanford, Getty Museum, Cite de la Musique Paris, Moogfest, Spoleto Festival, Umbria Jazz, Bang On A Can Festival, ICA London, Istanbul Jazz Festival, Vienna Jazz Festival, the Tank Center for Sonic Arts, and the Edinburgh Festival, among many others.

Neill is a longtime close associate of minimalist pioneer La Monte Young, and leads international performances of Young's music. The list of creative innovators with whom Neill has worked includes David Wojnarowicz, John Cage, John Cale, Petr Kotik, Pauline Oliveros, Rhys Chatham, DJ Spooky, David Berhman, Mimi Goese, and Nicolas Collins. From 1992-98 Neill was the Music Curator of The Kitchen in New York City; he continued curating large-scale events with major international artists at the World Financial Center Winter Garden during the 2000’s.

Neill began developing the Mutantrumpet in the early 1980s. Initially an acoustic instrument combining 3 trumpets and a trombone into one, he originally collaborated with synthesizer Robert Moog to integrate analog electronics. In 1992, while in residency at the STEIM research and development lab for newinstruments in Amsterdam, Neill made the Mutantrumpet fully computer interactive. In 2018 he created V4 of his instrument at STEIM, which made its debut in the premiere of Fantini Futuro. Video demonstrations of the Mutantrumpet have received over a million views on social media. 

A native of North Carolina, Neill holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from Manhattan School of Music. He studied composition with La Monte Young and was also mentored by composer/performer Jon Hassell in the early 1980’s. Since 2008 he has been a music professor at Ramapo College of New Jersey, where he recently founded an MFA program in Creative Music Technology in 2020..


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649
Interview

Ben Neill: Starting a Dub War

Read "Ben Neill: Starting a Dub War" reviewed by James Taylor


To say that Ben Neill plays the trumpet--the instrument of such jazz legends as Miles Davis and Clifford Brown--is an epic understatement. “I think electronica is like a new form of jazz--it's an instrumental form of music that plays out in popular culture but has musical ideas that go beyond the expectations of pop music," says Neill, a student of the electro-acoustic innovations of Robert Moog and minimalist aesthetic of LaMonte Young. Neill specifically plays the mutantrumpet, a self-designed instrument ...

273
Album Review

Ben Neill: Night Science

Read "Night Science" reviewed by Lyn Horton


Composing an aural atmosphere oozing with timelessness requires a talent for making choices from an infinite array of sound propositions. That talent without doubt lies in Ben Neill, whose Night Science boasts a stunning consistency and coherence in fulfilling of the process of combining electronic and acoustic sounds.

Refining his signature of individuality as he plays the “mutantrumpet," an electro- acoustic instrument of his own design, Neill soars through the musical space. His instrument animates a central character that peeks ...

517
Album Review

Ben Neill: Night Science

Read "Night Science" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Miles Davis certainly smiled on musical innovations. Years ago, to keep up with the latest, all that was required was to check out what the late trumpeter was investigating. With Miles gone, the hunt maybe a bit more difficult, but then again Peter Gordon's Thirsty Ear label, under the creative direction of pianist Matthew Shipp, has been a leader in bringing innovation and ingenuity into an intersection with the jazz world.

Enter trumpeter Ben Neill. Actually, reenter Ben ...

289
Album Review

Ben Neill: Automotive

Read "Automotive" reviewed by Mark Corroto


What’s a car commercial these days without a hip song? And although I’ve never seen Don Henley’s “Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac,” it scares me half to death to see GM appropriating Led Zeppelin’s music to sell the terminally unhip Cadillac dinosaurs. What self-respecting Jimmy Page fan would be caught dead in those Detroit rust buckets? But I digress.

It seems like (although they didn’t) Volkswagen started all this music-sells-cars business. From a wordless “Dah-Dah-Dah” came a consumer ...

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Contest

Enter the Thirsty Ear "Ben Neill - Night Science" Giveaway

Enter the Thirsty Ear "Ben Neill - Night Science" Giveaway

Source: All About Jazz

All About Jazz members are invited to enter the Thirsty Ear “Ben Neill - Night Science“ giveaway contest starting today. We'll select FIVE winners at the conclusion of the contest on November 21st. Click here to enter the contest

(Following Ben Neill at AAJ automatically enters you in the contest.)

Good luck! Your Friends at Thirsty Ear Recordings

About Ben Neill Ben Neill is a composer, performer, producer, and inventor of the mutantrumpet, a hybrid electro-acoustic ...

Ben Neill is using a schizophrenic trumpet to create art music for the people. --Wired Magazine

A creative composer, genius performer, and inventor of the mutantrumpet. --Time Out NY

Masterfully blurs the lines between electronic dance music and jazz sounds --Billboard

Ben Neill is a musical powerhouse, a serious and individual talent. --Time Out London

Neill’s astonishing mutantrumpet blends brass and computer with wit, beauty and solid musicianship. --Village Voice

9 out of 10 rating…Ben Neill is a mad scientist, and he has discovered the formula that breaks musical barriers.       --Mixmag

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Primary Instrument

Trumpet

Location

Beacon

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Prana Cantos (Guided...

Six Degrees Records
2023

buy

Night Science

Thirsty Ear Recordings
2009

buy

Automotive

Unknown label
2003

buy

Torchtower

Vertigo
1994

buy

Mainspring

Vertigo
1988

buy

Videos

Similar

Elliott Sharp
guitar, electric
Spring Heel Jack
band / ensemble / orchestra

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