Ben Neill

Biography

Ben Neill was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1957 and studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Youngstown State University's Dana School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, where he earned a doctorate. He studied privately with La Monte Young and was mentored by Jon Hassell. In 1981 he built the first Mutantrumpet, a trumpet with extra bells and valves and a trombone slide, with analog processing custom built by Robert Moog; later versions developed with David Behrman at Amsterdam's STEIM added MIDI and computer control.

Based in New York since the early 1980s, he was music curator at The Kitchen through the 1990s and has worked with John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Rhys Chatham, John Cale, David Wojnarowicz, DJ Spooky, King Britt and singer Mimi Goese. His albums, released on labels including Verve, Astralwerks, Thirsty Ear, Blue Math Music and Six Degrees, include Night Science (2009), Life You Are with Mimi Goese (2020), Trove and Prana Cantos (2023). He taught at NJIT and, from 2008, at Ramapo College of New Jersey, where he founded an MFA in Creative Music Technology and was named professor emeritus in 2025.

His book Diffusing Music: Trajectories of Sonic Democratization appeared from Bloomsbury in 2024. At Holland Tunnel Gallery he gave a performance and artist talk with the exhibition "Otherness" on September 18, 2022.

Practice. Live electro-acoustic performance on the Mutantrumpet, blending trumpet with real-time electronics; compositions drawing on electronic dance music, jazz and minimalism, plus installations.