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I played trumpet for many years and co-founded a creative chamber music ensemble called The Westerlies, which I no longer play with. We made a few albums and recorded/toured with amazing other musicians like Fleet Foxes, Samora Pinderhughes and Common, Wayne Horvitz, Dave Douglas, Nick Murphy/Chet Faker, and many more.
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Other bands I’ve recorded and/or toured with on various instruments: Half Waif, Hannah Epperson, Vieux Farka Toure, Daniel Rossen, and more. I’ve performed all over New York City, across the country at Hollywood Bowl, Red Rocks, MASS MOCA, and the Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals, and at two NPR Tiny Desk concerts.
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I spend a lot of my time helping people make albums. I move between recording, mixing, producing, playing instruments, programming, and anything else that needs to be done. I’ve worked with the bands mentioned above and a lovely assortment of others. My production work has gotten friendly reviews like ‘best new track’ from pitchfork, ‘best debut album’ from NPR, ‘bravely original’ from The Guardian, and ‘it just sounds really cool’ from Stereogum. Some people I’ve collaborated with on recordings: Half Waif, Hannah Epperson, Thelma, Vieux Farka Toure, Cassandra Jenkins, Renata Zeiguer, Nnux, Carmen Rothwell, Steven Van Betten and Andrew Rowan, rbke, and many many more (there’s a full discography at my music page).
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Making original music for film, podcast, and dance is also a big part of my life. I’ve written scores for films or audio released by The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York City Ballet, MOMA, Topic, Univision, PBS, Google, and many film festivals. I’ve scored every type of podcast, from news show to documentary to rom-com teleplay. I’ve performed my music for dance at Jacob’s Pillow and Gibney Dance. I also worked with Ambrose Akinmusire on a score for a new Aszure Barton piece premiered at Kampnagel in 2023, for which I also did the live mix.
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I make personal music. I’ve released three albums of songs under the name twig twig. I’ve also written and performed various bodies of work for synthesizers, field recordings, singing, brass instruments, and an array of talented musician and dancer friends.
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I also work as an audio engineer, supporting all types of media projects with mixing, sound design, location recording, and other forms of collaboration. I’ve made lots of narrative fiction podcasts, which combine all the different things I do and is very fun. I’ve also been supporting the work of artist Guadalupe Maravilla, with audio I’ve recorded or mixed appearing at MOMA, BK Museum, ICA Boston, and a growing number of other museums.
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Teaching is very important to me. I’ve learned so many things and love to share them. I’ve led experimental sound workshops with Found Sound Nation at places like MIT and MASS MOCA. With The Westerlies I got to teach a wide range of students all around the country, notably at Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music, NYU, and Yale. I also teach private lessons in music technology and composition.
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I recently moved to Philadelphia and have a small-but-mighty two-room production studio here, I’m also still connected to a few studios in NYC I love to work out of, including my old Sunset Park studio now called ‘Inner Monologue Recordings’
photo by Kiki Vassilakis