Dafna Naphtali is a singer/instrumentalist/electronic-musician. She composes and performs experimental, interactive electro-acoustic music for 20+ years, using her custom Max/MSP programming for live sound processing of voice and other instruments, as well as works for multi-channel audio and musical robots and drawing on her wide-ranging musical background in jazz, classical, rock and near-eastern music, performing in the US, Canada, Europe, India, Russia and the Middle East.
Current projects include: “Audio Chandelier”, multi-channel audio work presented as performance and installations around the US, Germany, and Canada — at Stanford University (2019) and a Harvestworks residency and coming to Governors Island Summer 2020, it was also presented in Montreal (at Symposium IX 2017 @ Satosphére) ; “Robotica” (her work for music robots and voice) was at Flea Theater and Avant Music Fest ’16.
Naphtali’s interactive Walkie Talkie Dream Angles, an Audio Augmented-reality soundwalk based on U-GRUVE AR platform, is a personalized interactive composition written for NY’s Washington Square Park. Walkie Talkie Dream Garden (2018) brings this psychogeographic aesthetic to waterfronts in Williamsburg Brooklyn and Hamburg Germany.
Dafna’s live sound-processing projects focus on duos with acoustic instrumentalists — pianist Gordon Beeferman (new CD “Pulsing Dot”), trombonist Jen Baker (Clip Mouth Unit), percussionist Luis Tabuenca (Index of Refraction), Hans Tammen (endangered guitar), and Chuck Bettis (electronics/throat – Chatter Blip).
Performing as a singer (unwired), Naphtali interprets the music of Cage, Stockhausen (Stimmung with choreographer Daria Fain / Magic Names ensemble), was an organizer of “Voice Activated” public interventions for Make Music NY, and by singing work by contemporary composers including Joshua Fried, Shelley Hirsch, Kitty Brazelton, José Halac, Yotam Haber, Jonathan Bepler and Spanish Civil War songs with the genre-transcending ensemble Barbez, and in a recital of Eisler/Brecht Hollywood Liederbuch.
Fellowships/awards include: NY Foundation for the Arts (Music/Sound ‘13, Computer Arts ‘01), NY State Council on the Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council, Franklin Furnace, American Composers Forum, travel grants: Foundation for Contemporary Arts, American Music Center; residencies: Music/OMI, STEIM, Harvestworks and Signal Culture.
Discography includes “Fenestrae” with Hans Tammen (2019), “Pulsing Dot” (CLANG ’17) with pianist Gordon Beeferman, “What is it Like to be a Bat?” a digital punk trio with Kitty Brazelton (Tzadik ‘03), as well as other CDs with Chuck Bettis, and Hans Tammen, and many as side-person and singer. Her album project in-progress is “Machines & Memory”, featuring her commissioned pieces since 2010: “Panda Half-Life” (vocal sextet / interactive electronics), “Men March” (voice/chamber group/live electronics) and Robotica (voice/music robots). More info: www.dafna.info
