Mark Coniglio

Composer/Artist Mark Coniglio focuses on the creation of works that combine music, dance, theater and interactive media. With choreographer Dawn Stoppiello he is co-founder of Troika Ranch, a New York City based dance theater company committed to creating multidisciplinary works. Coniglio has had his music performed both nationally and internationally including recent performances in New York City, Amsterdam, and London.

Dense rhythmic constructions and the use of sampled sound to create unusual percussive instruments are two of the hallmarks of his compositions. His music was perhaps best described by Keyboard Magazine "Coniglio's [music] consistently expresses a deep, sustained heaviness and ferocity. Powered by big drum sounds, surging phrases, and throbbing rhythms, it attacks the listener with stealth and force."

Coniglio is particularly interested in creating custom interactive instruments specifically designed to be used in the performance of his pieces. Since he has primarily been interested in creating music for dance, many of these instruments focus on monitoring the movements or vocalizations of dancers, and on using that information to allow performative control of synthesizers and other media. The first of these, created in 1989, was MidiDancer, a device that measures the angular change at several joints on the dancer's body. This information is sent over a wireless link to a computer where the data can be interpreted and used to control the available media devices. He also develops custom software to enable his performances. His most recent creation is called Isadora, a graphic programming environment that provides interactive control over digital media with special emphasis on the real-time manipulation of digital video.

A native of Nebraska, his career began with a five-year tenure as a producer for American Gramaphone Records, during which time he received a performance of his work by the London Symphony Orchestra. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts with electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick and received his degree in music composition in 1989. He taught courses in Interactive Music and was on the staff of the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology at CalArts from 1990 to 1994. After his relocation to New York City in the fall of 1994 he taught on the faculty of New York University.

Coniglio was recently awarded a year-long fellowship by Dance Theater Workshop’s ARM (Artists Resource & Media Lab) to develop a new work that features the next generation of the MidiDancer hardware and software. He has received grants from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, Meet the Composer and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has been in residence at Harvestworks, New York City, the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, The Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida, The Yellow Springs Institute, Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, and the Institute for Studies in the Arts at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.

In addition to his work with Troika Ranch, Coniglio also acts as a consultant for other dance companies. He recently served as technical advisor for a video intensive work created by Judith Jamison for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.