Assistant Professor of Music (Production)

Year Joined RCNJ: 2017

Contact Information

• Phone: 201-684-7009
• Email: zlayton@ramapo.edu
• Office: H-206
• Office Hours: Mon and Fri 1:00-3:30 PM
• Personal Website

Education:

• Ph.D. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• M.F.A. Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College
• M.P.S. New York University
• B.M. Oberlin Conservatory of Music

Courses Offered:

• MUSI 120 - MUSIC PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY
• MUSI 261 - RECORDING ARTS I
• MUSI 223 - ELECTRONIC & COMPUTER MUSIC I
• MUSI 363 - RECORDING ARTS II
• MUSI 424 – ELECTRONIC & COMPUTER MUSIC III
• Composing for Film and Television
• Sound Studies and Audio Art
• Acoustics and Psychoacoustics
• Visual Music

Awards and Professional Accomplishments:

Aaron Copland / Norton Foundation Fellowship, Macdowell composers award, Spring 2023

Macdowell Fellowship, artist residency program award, Summer 2022

Andrew Mellon Foundation, Civic Arts and Humanities Teaching Fellowship, Eugene Lang College, Spring 2016

IX Immersion/Experience Symposium, Société des Arts Technologiques, Satosphere, Montreal, 2016

Foundation for Contemporary Arts Fellowship Award, Music/Sound Category, 2015

Guggenheim Museum, Optical Sound, Moholy-Nagy: Future Present, curatorial consultant, 2016

Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Graduate Fellowship, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2015-2016

Performa: Ars Subtilior: Experiments in 14th and 20th Century Notation; Paradiso “Performing the Renaissance” Conference, NYU, 2015

Guggenheim Museum, Zero: Countdown to Tomorrow Exhibition, Lecturer, 2014

National Endowment for the Arts grant for Cecil Taylor Festival (ISSUE Project Room & Harlem Stage), 2012

Daedelus Foundation award for Darmstadt New Music Festival (ISSUE Project Room), 2011&2012

MoMa/PS1 Graphic Notation and Artist Books, NY Art Book Fair, 2012

Columbia University MFA conference: The Instrumentalization of Music, 2012,

The Public School: Course: Disorganizing Sound: Twentieth Century Improvised Music and Beyond, 2011

Wavefarm Transmission Arts Airtime Fellowship, 2010

Danish Council for Visual Art Award, 2010

City of Copenhagen Artist-In-Residency Program, 2010

Jerome Foundation, Roulette Emerging Artist Award, 2007

Turbulence New Radio and Performing Arts, 2007

University of Copenhagen, Department of Art and Cultural Studies, IKK Artist Talk, 2010

Experimental Television Center, Artist in Residence Panel, 2009

Harvestworks Artist In Residence Panelist, 2009

International Computer Music Conference, Sonic Topology, Copenhagen, DK, 2007

Netherlands America Foundation, study and travel grant, 2000

Selected Performances & Exhibitions

Roulette, Concerto for Nepenthae Trio and String Orchestra of Brooklyn, New York, 2022

Museum der Moderne, Moving Pictures exhibition, Salzburg, Austria, 2022

WNYC New Sounds Festival, Music of Pauline Oliveros, Darmstadt Ensemble co-directed with Ben Neill, New York, 2017

Roulette, Optics Festival, Brooklyn, NY, 2017

Parrish Museum, Optipus: The Watery Owl of Minerva, Watermill, NY, 2017

Whitney Museum / Knockdown Center / Microscope Gallery, Optipus:The Owl Flies at Twilight, New York, NY, 2017

Fischer Center, Bard College, Pauline Oliveros and International Contemporary Ensemble, electronics, Annendale, NY, 2016

Rubin Museum, “Brainwave Sonification”, Force of Stillness exhibition: Buddhist Inspired Video and Performance, NY, 2016

EMPAC, “512 Voices”, world premiere of new work for 496 channel wavefield synthesis system, Troy, NY, 2016

Secret Project Robot, 10-Year Anniversary, AV Salon, Brooklyn, NY, 2015

Guggenheim Museum, “Das Creamcheese” performance, “ZERO: Countdown to Tomorrow 1950-1960s”, NYC, 2014

The Kitchen, Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Originale, NYC, 2014

Roulette, Stridulitrum for String Orchestra of Brooklyn, NYC, 2014

The Kitchen, Synth Nights, NYC, 2013

Eyebeam, John Cage’s HPSCHD, New York, 2013

Eli Broad Museum, Michigan State University, MI, 2013

Black Box Gallery, “Art Can’t Be Defined…”, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2013

Performa, Fluxus Music Festival, curated in collaboration with Mark Beasley, New York, 2011

Monitorgalleri, “New Video New York”, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2010

Art Currents Gallery, Tone and Temperment, curated by Sophie Landres, NYC, 2009

Phillips de Pury, ISSUE Project Room Benefit Auction, NYC, 2009

Creative Time, Bodies without Organs, improvisation at the David Byrne Playing the Building exhibition, NYC, 2008

Exit Art, Brainwave, New York, NY, 2008

Austin Museum of Digital Art, Austin, TX, 2008

MATA, Curator of inaugural Interval series, ISSUE Project Room, NY, 2007

Philoctetes Center, Pattern Recognition, group exhibition, NYC, 2007

Sideshow Gallery, American Abstract Artists, “Material Matter”, curated by Kat Griefen, Brooklyn, NY, 2007

Video Dumbo, curated by Caspar Stracke, Brooklyn, NY, 2007

Yerba Buena Center for for the Arts, TV of TOMORROW exhibition, San Francisco, CA, 2007

ArtForum Berlin – “Bretheren of the Stone” by Jen Liu – original score, Berlin, DE, 2006

Kilkenny Arts Festival: “Failure”: with Vito Acconci (sound design), Ireland, 2006

JMU Institute for Visual Studies, “Contemporary Mathematical Photography and New Media”, 2006

Curatorial Experience

Curatorial Consultant, Guggenheim Museum, New York City, 2014-2016

Curator, ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn, 2009-2013

Curator/Producer, PS1/MoMa, “Warmup” summer, 2007-2009

Founder/Artistic Director, Darmstadt, “Classics of the Avant Garde”, 2004 – present