Presenter Bios

Anne M. Fennell, M.ED.

Anne Fennell is the President of the California Music Educators Association and the K-12 Music Program Manager for San Diego Unified School District in San Diego, CA. She holds a bachelor’s in music education, a master’s in educational leadership studies, Orff-Schulwerk certification Levels: I-II-III and over 90 graduate hours in music and additional education coursework. Her experiences include 32 years of teaching music composition and steel drum ensembles in grades 9-12, Kindergarten-Grade 8 integrated arts and music through Orff-Schulwerk, and leading both vocal and instrumental ensembles in civic and professional performances, including national music conferences and the annual NAMM Board of Directors meetings in 2013 & 2016. She is a published author through Pearson Education, the GRAMMY Foundation, The Percussion Marketing Council, and Disney’s Little/Baby Einsteins. She presents sessions and gives keynotes both nationally and internationally, including for the American Orff-Schulwerk Association and National Association for Music Education Conferences, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), China music education conferences (through the support of the International Music Products Industry (NAMM)), and the International Society for Music Education. She has received numerous state and national awards, including the 2020 Technology in Music Education National Teacher of the Year, 2017 Magnet Schools of America National Teacher of the Year, top 10 GRAMMY Music Educator Finalist for 2016, and top 3 Music Educator award from Music and Arts in 2015.

Adam Rokhsar

Adam Rokhsar is an artist, programmer, and educator. He works with a variety of digital and physical media, primarily creating music, animation, and software that enables other people to make art. He created RokVid for Ableton, the first Max for Live device that lets musicians create real-time visuals inside Live, and recently released BrainCandy, a music video creator for Live that automatically edits and applies audio-reactive effects to video. Adam currently works as a freelance 3D animator, independent software developer, and consultant to a variety of tech companies, as well as a professor at New York University's Steinhardt and Tisch schools.

Bad Snacks

Bad Snacks is a beatmaker, artist & multi-instrumentalist based in the Boston area. Having been classically trained on violin since the age of three, she studied a multitude of musical styles until settling on her musical chapter as bad snacks, where she combines organic and electric instruments with synthesized soundscapes in a lofi-meets-electronic setting and often performs within the instrumental hip hop and dance scenes of Los Angeles.

Christina Horn

Self-produced, classically-trained American composer and recording artist, Christina Horn has released multiple albums as one half of Hudson K and collaborated with various artists as a keyboardist, vocalist, lyricist, songwriter and engineer. Horn is currently collaborating with Matt Honkonen under the name Hotlights. The duo is producing genre-expansive albums, custom trailers and theme music for the Warner Brother Discovery network’s catalog of music. By collaborating with musicians and producers as an Ableton Live Certified trainer, Christina hopes to inspire more young women to enter the field of music production.

Crystal Cortez

Crystal Cortez is a sound designer, performer, and creative technologist based out of Portland, OR. They are also a professor of Creative Coding & Sonic Arts at Portland Community College and a Max MSP Certified Trainer. As someone who never saw themself represented in computer music or creative tech their work focuses on the empowerment of underserved populations gaining access and knowledge around technology. In 2019 they co founded whateverSpace, a maker space offering free and sliding scale workshops and technology rentals with priority going to the BIPOC community. Crystal has been teaching beginning to intermediate level Max MSP courses and workshops for four years and specializes in spatial audio, sound design, data sonification, and sensor programming. They believe artists of all mediums and technological backgrounds can learn and use Max to enhance their practice! Under their performance moniker Crystal Quartez they transform field recordings, use synthesis, audio programming, data sonification, and 3D sound spatialization to produce complex sonic environments. Their practice has recently involved the development of interactive sculptural interfaces and wearable technology that monitor movement and other corporeal methods to liberate the performer from their interfaces. Their art has been shown at NIME, La MaMa NYC, PNCA, Disjecta, PICA, Navel (LA), On the Boards (Seattle) and more

Erin Barra

With a wide-ranging skill set as a music and tech educator, songwriter, producer, instrumentalist, entrepreneur, and activist, Erin has been a key player in many projects. An authoritative voice in music, tech, and education, Barra is the Director of Popular Music at Arizona State University, Executive Director of Beats By Girlz, course developer for Berklee Online, and former Associate Professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She has a wide breadth of experience developing and teaching curriculums at the open-source, K-12, and collegiate levels, several of which are the most popular and highest rated courses on their respective platforms.

Ernesto Malaca

Ernesto is a Chilean music producer, composer and Ableton Certified Trainer living in Mexico City. In his work on stage he functions as a problem solver, embracing the needs of artists that need assistance with running a show from a computer, which are trying to enhance their live performance with Video, Stage Lights and other cool stuff. Ernesto had collaborations with important Mexican world Class artists such as Elohim Corona (Moderatto), Kalimba, Ely Guerra and Café Tacvba, among others. Also have been playback engineer on international festivals in Mexico such as Baja beach festival (With Paloma Mami) and Tecate Pal Norte (Octavio de Dweeb).

Francis Preve

Technologist and Producer Francis Preve has been part of the global electronic music scene for over 25 years. Since 2004, he has designed hundreds of factory presets for companies including Ableton, Roland, Korg, Xfer, Sequential, and Kilohearts. In addition, as a college professor since 1996, Preve also developed the curricula for multiple electronic production courses in the Texas state school system, which he currently teaches at Austin Community College.

Francisco Dean

A native of San Antonio, Texas, Francisco Dean resides and teaches in Chicago, where he serves on the music faculty of the University of Chicago Lab School. He received his Bachelors in music education from Texas State University and his Masters in jazz studies from Indiana University. At the Lab School, he directs the high school jazz ensembles, and teaches both intro and advanced-level classes in digital music production, which also include opportunities for students to explore sound design, recording studio musicianship and film scoring. He is also the founder of the school’s electronic music ensemble. An Ableton fan through and through, Francisco has found a meaningful use for it in every class he teaches, both in conventional and non-conventional ways.

Graham Spice

Graham Spice, Associate Professor of Music Production and Recording Technology, joined the faculty at Shenandoah Conservatory in 2018. He brings years of experience as both a music technologist and a musician. Spice is certified as an Ableton Certified Trainer, an Avid Certified Instructor for Pro Tools, and a Sonnox Certified Instructor. He recently became a Certified Instructor for Wwise, Audiokinetic’s software solution for interactive media and video games. As a producer and engineer, Graham Spice has worked with world-class artists like Keith Urban, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Bela Fleck, Victor Wooten, and many more.

Graham can regularly be found producing and recording area artists as well as performing with various groups playing guitar, piano, and computer. Audition samples of music and life at his website.

ill.Gates

ill.Gates is a name known by nearly all producers in the English speaking world. His songs have been in the iTunes Top Ten Electronic Charts several times. DJs play his music every weekend and fans wear their ill.Gates tattoos with pride. Some of his collaborators include 42 Dugg, Alanis Morisette, Andrew Huang, Apashe, Beats Antique, Captain Hook, CloZee, Conrank, The Dead Kennedys, Destroid, Eprom, EyeOnEyez, G Jones, Gucci Mane, ill-esha, KJ Sawka, Liquid Stanger, Masia One, Mimosa, Minnesota, Mr Bill, Opiuo, RIP Kenny, Stephan Jacobs, Stylust, UHNK, Vaedynn, and Zain Effendi (composer on Pirates of the Caribbean, Dark Knight). His ringtones can be heard on the Windows Phone and the animatronic Droids perform to his music at Star Wars Disneyland. At this point I think it’s safe to say ill.Gates is a household name.

When he isn’t composing his own music ill.Gates is teaching the next generation of musicians and providing employment opportunities through Producer Dojo, an organization he founded in 2016 with the goal of ‘launching 1000 music careers’. Producer Dojo uses a martial arts belt system to cultivate discipline in young music producers, provides them an outlet for release on the Dojo record label, and helps them create an online business selling samples, sounds and services.

You can catch up with the ill one at www.illGates.com and learn all about the Dojo at www.ProducerDojo.com

Jeff Kaiser

Jeff Kaiser’s work as a trumpet player and electronic musician is documented on over fifty full-length recordings on labels including Clean Feed Records, Cuneiform Records, Leo Records, NineWinds, Orenda Records, Sinkro Records, and his own label, pfMENTUM. Kaiser has performed in concert halls, clubs, universities, colleges, music conservatories, and art galleries in Austria, China, England, Estonia, Germany, Mexico, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and throughout the United States. He is an Associate Professor of Music Technology and Composition at the University of Central Missouri. For more information: jeffkaiser.com

Josh Weatherspoon

Josh Weatherspoon is a musician, Ableton Certified Trainer, and educator from Los Angeles. He has been a Max user since 2015 and began working for Cycling ’74 in 2020.

Kaley Lane Eaton

A conservatory-trained classical pianist and vocalist who fell into creating electronic music shortly after a stint playing Baroque lute, Seattle composer, singer-songwriter and producer Kaley Lane Eaton’s music is colored by this eclecticism. Her “disconcertingly lovely” (Seattle Weekly) compositions combine innovative digital processes with ancient performance practices, questioning humanity’s growing dependence on technology and the resulting exploitation of the planet. Most recently, her work has been commissioned and performed by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Modern Orchestra, the Fresh Squeezed Opera Company (NYC), and Karin Stevens Dance, and has enjoyed support from such organizations as the Jack Straw Cultural Center, Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, the Allied Arts Foundation, the International Alliance for Women in Music, and 4Culture.

Her debut solo album cedar, an electro-chamber pop song cycle oriented in both art song and ambient IDM, was released in February 2022 on Bright Shiny Things. Cedar, both origin story and manifesto, captures a distinct Pacific Northwestern aesthetic: tuneful beauty, solitude, and destructive noise.

As a writer with particular interest in the role of music's relationship to feminism, education, and our larger culture, Eaton has been published by KING FM's Second Inversion ("Women, Creativity, and the Classroom" (2016) and "Reflections on Wilderness" (2017)) and Common Tone Arts (“Hit the reset button: Rethinking how we teach music technology” (2020) and "Things I wish I had known when I thought I couldn't be a composer" (2017)).

Eaton holds a DMA in composition from the University of Washington and is an Associate Professor at Cornish College of the Arts.

http://www.kaleylaneeaton.com/

Lawrence Grey

Lawrence Grey is a lifelong musician, a dedicated educator, and a tireless proponent of music education in schools. Lawrence is the founder of Young Producers Group and serves as the head of curriculum development by designing innovative, engaging curricula that reflect the interests and lived experiences of students. With a Bachelor's Degree in Music Composition from New York University, a Masters Degree in Education from University of California Los Angeles, and as an Ableton Certified Trainer, Lawrence’s unique position singularly qualifies him to create curricula and lead a team of forward-thinking educators.

Lorna Dune

Lorna Dune is a sound designer, electronic music producer, composer and keyboardist. Her work has appeared from the stage of Carnegie Hall and concert halls nationwide to underground dance clubs and is an ever evolving genre-blend of ambient, eclectic techno and contemporary classical. A lover of new emerging creative technologies, she is currently a consulting sound designer on several software, iOS and VR development teams using sound healing principles in transformative multi-sensory experiences. http://lornadune.com

Max Alper

Max Alper is a sonic artist, educator, and writer who has been making "weaponized memery as critical sonic arts pedagogy" under the IG handle La Meme Young for half a decade. As of 2020, La Meme Young has expanded to a fully autonomous virtual learning community for musicians and artists of all mediums, supported entirely through crowdfunding at www.lamemeyoung.com. Programming for this community includes live classes, performance workshops, and group critique sessions held multiple times a week over Zoom, as well as monthly ongoing guest artist talks and lectures on niche topics in the sonic arts. The goal of this growing virtual learning project is to not only create a space for artists to discuss and uplift each other's work, but to democratize music pedagogy across an international network of those seeking a space to learn outside of the Ivory Tower.

Merrily James

The London-born, Seattle-raised songstress and electronic-performer began honing her musical craft during her teen years — touring with the internationally acclaimed Total Experience Gospel Choir, competing as part of “Showtime at the Apollo, and learning songwriting through the Jimmy Hendrix Experience. Over the course of her career, Merrily has collaborated with numerous Brooklyn music trendsetters and shared in the stage with industry icons such as Run-DMC, Bobby McFerrin, Phillip Bailey (Earth, Wind, & Fire), Rocco Prestia (Tower of Power), Don Was, and Valerie Simpson. Merrily James currently serves as Program Director of the Songwriting and Production at BerkleeNYC.

Misty Jones Simpson

Born and raised in Texas, Misty Jones Simpson is one of the few female Ableton Certified Trainers in the United States. She graduated from Baylor University with a degree in Music Education and studied Music Technology Innovation at Berklee Valencia in Spain, where she received the Outstanding Scholar award and earned a Master of Music degree. Simpson’s research has been featured in Billboard Magazine and on Ableton’s website. Specializing in MIDI programming, Ableton Live, controllerism and pop/electronic music, Simpson teaches sound synthesis, electronic music and controllerism at Middle Tennessee State University as an Associate Professor in the Department of Recording Industry. She has presented and performed at various festivals and conferences including Ableton's Loop Summit, APME, MEIEA, MIT’s EmTech España, Madrid Music Days, and the King of Spain’s Impulsa Music Forum. Simpson is a contributing author to The Music Technology Cookbook, published by Oxford University Press, and also recently self-published a book titled Decompressed: How to Find Joy as a Music Producer in a Flattened World, available on Amazon.

Rayna Zemel

Rayna Zemel is an award winning film producer, live show designer, playback engineer and Senior Sound Designer at Mattel.

After graduating with a degree in Political Science from the University of Vermont, she pivoted and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the music industry. During the 2010’s, she worked at Paramount Recording Studios, taught music production at The Los Angeles Recording School and worked as an audio engineer and producer for then president of G.O.O.D. Music, Che Pope. After producing records for a bevy of independent artists, in 2014, she found herself in the live concert industry as a touring Playback Engineer and MIDI tech.

From 2014 to 2022, she toured the world with a roster of A-List clients, including: Dua Lipa, Lana Del Rey,The Lonely Island, and Troye Sivan.Additionally, she served as Guitarist and Music Director for Juno Award-winning artist Kiesza.

When Covid forced the music industry to shut down, Rayna developed a passion for documentary photography and activism.As a member of the National Press Photography Association, she documented over 120 protests in the Los Angeles area. Her work and efforts are featured in the short film “We Can’t Breathe,” - an eight minute film which won over fifteen awards, including: Best Music Video at the San Luis Obispo Film Festival, The Cleveland International Film Festival, and The Cordillera International Film Festival. Her original music compositions can be heard in hundreds of television shows and commercials.

Sam Ryan

With 25 years of professional experience in the music industry Sam Ryan began his career in live sound, and then moved into the studio with the roll of producer / engineer / mixer co-founding Canada based music production company SOS Music Group LTD. Sam is a certified Ableton Live trainer and is the chief instructor of the Audio Engineering and Music Production Program at SAE Vancouver. Sam recently has upgraded his studio for mixing immersive audio music and is soon to be a certified Dolby Atmos Music Studio.

Here are some credits if you want to add it to the short bio. Ill leave that up to you guys.

Recent artists Sam has collaborated mixing music for include Harrison Brome, Kiesza, Jake Shears (scissor sisters), Sofi Tucker (Katey Perry - Small Talk Remix), and Dragonette. Sam has been involved with songs in film/tv placements such as Gossip Girl, Community, My Little Pony, White Collar, Littlest Pet Shop, Running Wild and Bad Teacher

Seersha

Seersha is an interdisciplinary content creator, award-winning composer, music producer, songwriter, and recording artist hailing from ATL. Her work as an independent, self-produced artist has caught the attention of underground tastemakers such as yvynyl, Wonky Sensitive, Audiofemme, Popmuzik, Discobelle, and more. With a diverse musical background spanning from classical piano to time spent writing primarily country music in Nashville, as well a business degree from Emory University and experience in the corporate world, she has had a hand in a broad range of creative projects, including remixes, short film scoring, video game audio, music video production, and PR. She is the composer and sound designer for Lightbreak, a story-driven musical puzzle game backed by a successful Kickstarter and slated for release Spring 2023.

Tiffany Miranda

Tiffany "Delilah" Miranda is an accomplished DJ, producer, engineer, singer and founder of the nonprofit organization, Girls Make Beats. The Miami native started as a recording artist at age 15, appearing on shows like American Idol and X-Factor. After facing many challenges in a male dominated industry, Tiffany found a sense of creative control by learning about the music production and audio engineering fields. Building her own home studio to interning at various major studios in Miami, she quickly noticed there were not a lot of women in these fields nor was there a sense of support for women trying to break into these positions. Despite often being the “only woman in the room”, she landed an in-house engineer position and obtained her Avid certification. She then helmed her skills to become one of the most sought after recording engineers and producers in the industry working with heavy hitters Lil Uzi Vert, French Montana, TI, Rick Ross, DJ Khaled, Fat Joe and much more. In efforts to position girls at the forefront of music technology, Tiffany founded Girls Make Beats (GMB) in 2012. The organization empowers young girls to become music producers, DJs and audio engineers. She has forged partnerships with industry titans like Apple, Spotify, Facebook as well as various major record labels to create unparalleled opportunities for the girls in the program. This includes an official remix for Janet Jackson and spearheading programs to engage the girls with music industry professionals such as Janelle Monae, Chloe x Halle, Tinashe and Eve. The work she is doing with GMB has been featured on Billboard, grammy.com, Good Morning America and more.Tiffany has been a keynote speaker and panelist for many events with a focus on female empowerment, diversity and inclusion including Today at Apple, Avid Learning Partner Summit, the State of California Education AME Conference, JBL Black History Month, and more.

Wendel Patrick

Wendel Patrick has been referred to as “David Foster Wallace reincarnated as a sound engineer” by Urbanite Magazine and as “wildly talented” by the Baltimore Sun. He has been referred to by XLR8R magazine as “a hip-hop producer that could easily make any fan of Squarepusher, Boards of Canada, or Madlib flip out.” The alter-ego of classical and jazz pianist Kevin Gift, Wendel Patrick has made a name for himself internationally as a music producer of remarkable vision, skill, and talent. His five albums: Sound, Forthcoming, JDWP, Passage, and Travel were all produced without the use of sampling, with Patrick playing every note of every instrument. What is perhaps most astounding and perplexing to listeners is that there are actually no instruments...he crafts all of the instruments, and plays every note, electronically.

Equally at home performing on stage with his band, behind two turntables, beatboxing, improvising, or playing a Mozart Concerto on stage with orchestra, Wendel Patrick has toured Europe on several occasions and performed throughout the world with renowned spoken word artist and poet Ursula Rucker (The Roots, 4 Hero). In 2014, Wendel Patrick traveled to Australia as a guest lecturer, speaking about music production and entrepreneurship in the arts at The Australian Institute of Music in both Sydney and Melbourne. In 2011, Wendel Patrick co- founded the Baltimore Boom Bap Society, with Erik Spangler (DJ Dubble8) that performs monthly improvised hip hop shows with hand-picked musicians and emcees. The group’s collaborative performance with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra of Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale was named “Best Mesmerizing Performance of 2016” by Baltimore Magazine. Wendel Patrick’s music has also been heard across the country on NPR stations, most notably on Out of the Blocks, an award-winning radio documentary program he co-produces with radio producer Aaron Henkin for NPR affiliate WYPR that has been featured by the Third Coast International Audio Festival and Hearing Voices as well as on the BBC.

Recent performances included a new collaboration between the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore Boom Bap Society, on which Patrick’s orchestral compositions were performed. An avid photographer and videographer, his photography has been exhibited in several art galleries including the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Ralph Arnold Gallery in Chicago. Patrick shoots all of the accompanying documentary photography and videography for Out of the Blocks.

Wendel Patrick/Kevin Gift majored in both music and political science at Emory University and earned his M.M. in Piano Performance as a scholarship student at the Northwestern University School of Music in Evanston Illinois. Patrick is a winner of the 2015 Baker Artist Awards’ Mary Sawyers Baker grand prize and was a member of the faculty at Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland from 2001 to 2013 teaching piano, introduction to music theory, music history and electronic music production. He has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art and at Loyola University Chicago where he was Department of Fine and Performing Arts Guest Artist- in-Residence for 2019.

Wendel Patrick is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Music Engineering & Technology at The Peabody Music Conservatory - Johns Hopkins University where he teaches “Hip Hop Music Production: History and Practice”, the first course of its kind to be taught at a major traditional music conservatory anywhere in the United States. A 2021-2022 Harvard Nasir Jones Fellow at The Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Patrick has recently been named as the new host of “Artworks” on Maryland Public Television/PBS.

Will Kuhn

Will Kuhn serves as Music Department Coordinator at Lebanon High School in Lebanon, OH and is an Ableton Certified Trainer. In 2006, he designed an innovative high school music tech curriculum focused on amateur music production, which involves over 300 students annually. His lab-based courses and student projects are regularly featured at regional music education events. He was named TI:ME (Technology in Music Education) Teacher of the Year in 2015, and currently serves as the organization’s national president. His books, Electronic Music School (with Ethan Hein) and Interactive Composition (with VJ Manzo) are widely used by producers and educators. Nationally, he gives clinics and workshops on revitalizing school music programs for the 21st century.

Ableton Educator Sessions