Ben Neill

Ben Neill is an innovative composer, performer and educator best known for the Mutantrumpet, his groundbreaking, electro-acoustic instrument. Neill seamlessly blends acoustic and electronic timbres, ambient grooves, and visual media to create “art music for the people.” (Wired Magazine)

His extensive discography includes thirteen albums on labels including Verve, Astralwerks, and Six Degrees, He has performed at prestigious venues and festivals worldwide, including BAM Next Wave Festival, Lincoln Center, Big Ears Festival, Whitney Museum, Broad Museum, Bing Concert Hall at Stanford, Getty Museum, Cite de la Musique, Spoleto Festival, Umbria Jazz, ICA London, Istanbul Jazz Festival, Vienna Jazz Festival, House of Blues Clubs US, and Edinburgh Festival, to name a few.

Neill is a longtime close associate of minimalist pioneer La Monte Young, performing with Young and leading international concerts of his music since the mid-1980’s. The list of other musical innovators with whom Neill has worked closely includes John Cage, David Berhman, King Britt, Nicolas Collins, Pauline Oliveros, Rhys Chatham, DJ Spooky, and Mimi Goese.

Neill created the first Mutantrumpet in the early 1980s with the help of synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog, and has continued to develop it into a fully interactive computer instrument over four decades. He is an Emeritus Professor of Music at Ramapo College of New Jersey, where he taught classes in electronic music, music industry, and contemporary music theory for sixteen years.