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Keir Neuringer has been a musician all his life. Born in New York in 1976, he is active as a composer, performer, bandleader, writer, interdisciplinary artist and curator. He has cultivated a personal and intensely physical approach to solo saxophone improvisation that honors and builds upon diverse music-making traditions, and has delivered talks and workshops on improvisation, video art, and the socio-political ramifications of his work in Europe, North America and Israel. After completing a degree in composition, he moved to Europe in 1999 and spent ten years, during which time he was a Fulbright Scholar at the Academy of Music in Krakow, a master's degree graduate of The Hague's experimental ArtScience Institute, and curator of the audiovisual program at contemporary art platform <>TAG.

Vehemently critical of the destructive behavior of industrial civilization, his works bring audiences into a state of emotional and intellectual curiosity that meets the conditions for meaningful dialogue with the culture at large. His no-input mixer and saxophone performance 'The Love Story' confronts the seeming limitless power of electric current with the seeming fragility of the human lungs. 'Dodging Bullets', a video score he performs with local improvisers, presents audiences with a raucous audiovisual depiction of life under the gun that transforms over its 23 minutes into a cathartic, collective firing back. He has also written new music for the concert hall and produced electronic incidental music for contemporary Polish theater, as well as video installations, essays, and a book of performance texts that tear away at the possibility of political neutrality or social ambivalence.

In addition to leading his own experimental rock band and performing as a soloist, Keir Neuringer has worked with a wide and undefined network of musicians. He maintains a close connection with the Dutch new music group Ensemble Klang, performs in long-running duos with Rafal Mazur, DJ Sniff, Joel Ryan and Carlos Iturralde, and has worked with free improvisation legends Evan Parker and Misha Mengelberg. Acclaimed composer/director Heiner Goebbels has created a new version of his work 'Walden' for Ensemble Klang with Neuringer as narrator, and he was invited by celebrated American maverick Robert Ashley to perform the notorious early work 'The Wolfman' for the BBC in 2005, a role he reprised at the 2006 Live Electronics Festival in Amsterdam and the 2009 Spark Festival in Minneapolis. He has performed and exhibited works at festivals, concert halls, theaters, clubs and underground venues in the US, Mexico, Israel, Turkey, South Africa, Canada and throughout Europe. He lives in Ithaca, New York.


[short bio]

Keir Neuringer has cultivated a personal and intensely physical approach to solo saxophone improvisation that honors, builds upon, and eschews diverse music-making traditions. Vehemently critical of the destructive behavior of industrial civilization, in his work (as a composer, performer, bandleader, writer, interdisciplinary artist and curator) he seeks to bring audiences into a state of emotional and intellectual curiosity that meets the conditions for meaningful dialogue with the culture at large. He works with a wide and undefined network of inspiring musicians, including bassist Rafal Mazur, turntablist DJ Sniff, and the contemporary music group Ensemble Klang.