Neil Feather: High Zero Workshop

In partnership with the High Zero festival of improvised and experimental music, the Department of Music presents a workshop by Neil Feather.

Neil Feather is an inventor of experimental musical instruments and mechanical sound sculptures. The inventions combine strings, springs, magnets, motors, flywheels, electromagnetic pickups, bicycles, bowling balls and other matter to explore the sounds of unlikely physical events. He has performed hundreds of concerts across the United States, Canada and New Zealand. He also composes site- specific kinetic sound installations.

Neil Feather was a founding member of the Red Room Collective and the High Zero Foundation. He won the Sondheim Art Prize and the Trawick Contemporary Art Prize. He is a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow. He has been part of many groups including Two To Tutu Too, Thus, Aerotrain, Mugwump, The Elephantitans, Broydelic Sidecar Eye, The Official Project, and Big If. He was recently a designer/builder for the 4th manifestation of Mauricio Kagel’s Zwei Mann Orchester.

High Zero is the premier festival of improvised, experimental music on the east coast, being fully devoted to new collaborations between the most inspired improvisors from around the world. Lasting two weeks in total, the festival brings together 28 core musicians each year, but also involves a much larger subculture of musicians in Baltimore and on the east coast. Unlike many related festivals, High Zero is not narrow in terms of sensibility or subculture, but rather widely inclusive of all the different types of experimental music-making in the moment. The fact that half of the festival's core participants are from Baltimore speaks to the depth of Baltimore's experimental music subculture, which in recent years has grown to be one of the richest cities in the country for experimental art.

Admission is free.

Plan your visit
UMBC is located about 10 minutes south of the Inner Harbor along I-95. For this event, paid visitor parking is available in Lot 9, behind the Performing Arts and Humanities Building, and in the Administration Drive Garage — please click here for additional information on location and daytime parking.