Phill Niblock

Experimental composer, filmmaker, and videographer Phill Niblock was born in Anderson, Indiana, on October 2, 1933. After studying economics, he moved to New York in 1958, where he worked as a photographer and director of amateur / independent films. He discovered the effects of sound synchronization while riding a motorcycle on an expedition where he found himself behind a slow-moving truck for a long time. The noises made by the vehicles inspired him to explore the musical universe of avant-garde composers. With no prior training, in 1968 he created his first minimalist drone-based pieces using magnetic tape, where he would layer long instrumental chords. A professor at Staten Island University in New York from 1971 to 1998, he also worked as a composer and filmmaker. After several short films, his first series on human activity, The Movement of People Working - shot between 1973 and 1991 in Japan, China, Brazil, South Africa, and the Arctic – featured his own score. He released his first album, Nothin' to Look at Just a Record, in 1982, which was followed by Niblock for Celli / Celli Plays Niblock (1984). An active member and director (beginning in 1985) of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York, Phill Niblock received several honorary titles, including the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 1994 and the John Cage Award in 2014. At the same time, he continued to pursue his activity as a composer, working with instrumentalists from the experimental scene or with Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. Exploring the possibilities of different instruments such as cello, flute, electric guitar or organ, and even ambient sounds, before working on computers, Phill Niblock produced albums such as A Young Person's Guide to Phill Niblock (1995), Guitar Too, for Four (2002), Touch Food (2003), Ghosts and Others (2005), Touch Five (2013) and Music for Organ (2019). From the 2000s onwards, Phil Niblock was very active on stage, at artistic events and in concert, creating new pieces for orchestra, including Disseminate (2004), Three Orchids (2014) and Four Walls Full of Sound (2021), while older works were performed by contemporary ensembles. An acclaimed composer, Phill Niblock died of cardiac arrest on January 8, 2024, at the age of 90.

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