The Nstrument Lab is a research group focusing on the development of new electronic musical instruments. Based at The New School’s College of Performing Arts, the researchers are comprised of graduate student performer-composer-improvisor-technologists. By utilizing open-source hardware and software platforms that are aimed to be easily distributed to a wide array of audiences, accessibility to new, creative performance technology is at the forefront of the work. The Lab is directed by Prof. Levy Lorenzo.
Who We Are
Dr. Levy Lorenzo
Assistant Professor of Creative Technologies
Born in Bucharest, Filipino-American Levy Marcel Ingles Lorenzo, Jr. works at the intersection of music, art, and technology. On an international scale, his body of work spans custom electronics design, sound engineering, instrument building, installation art, free improvisation, and classical percussion. With a primary focus on inventing new instruments, he prototypes, composes, and performs new electronic music. As an art consultant, Levy designs interactive electronics ranging from small sculptures to large-scale public art installations with artists such as Alvin Lucier, Christine Sun Kim, Ligorano-Reese, and Leo Villareal. As a studio musician, he has recorded with artists such as Peter Evans, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Ryuichi Sakamoto and George Lewis. As a sound engineer, he specializes in the realization and performance of complete electro-acoustic concerts with non-traditional configurations. One of his main engagements is Claire Chase's Density 2036 project. A core member of the acclaimed International Contemporary Ensemble (IntCE), he fulfills multiple roles as live sound engineer, electronicist, and percussionist.
Filling a unique niche, Levy is in demand as a freelance designer and artist. His work has been featured at STEIM, REWIRE, MIT Media Lab, Harvestworks, Ensemble Moderne, Darmstadt, Yellow Barn, Pitchfork.com, Slashdot.org, G4TV, Grey Group, Bose, The New York Times, BBC, and Burning Man. An advocate for interdisciplinary arts, he has collaborated with dancers, video artists, public artists, mathematicians, sculptors, architects, and dramaturgs. Bridging the gap between the electronics design cycle and the performance practice of cutting-edge contemporary music, Levy is as equally comfortable wielding a soldering iron as drumsticks and four-mallets. He has fluency navigating hardware schematics and coding in various software environments, as well as interpreting complex musical scores and playing chamber music.
Levy earned degrees as Master of Electrical & Computer Engineering from Cornell University, and Doctor of Musical Arts in Percussion Performance from Stony Brook University. He has given numerous guest workshops and lectures on electronic musical instrument design and performance practice. Dr. Lorenzo holds a position as Professor of Creative Technologies at The New School, College of Performing Arts.
Alexa Letourneau
Graduate Assistant, 2021 — present
PDPL Composition, ‘23
Alexa Letourneau is a composer, flutist, vocalist, podcaster, filmmaker, and educator currently based in New York City. An Ohio native, Alexa began playing the flute at the age of 9 and within weeks was taping 5 pens together to draw a staff in order to write her own music. Since then, her love for music has only grown. She graduated with a Bachelor’s of Music in Composition from Illinois Wesleyan University under John Orfe, and a Master’s of Music in Composition from the Mannes School of Music under Missy Mazzoli, and is currently still at Mannes, working towards a Professional Studies Diploma in Composition under Valerie Coleman.
As a composer, Alexa's works have been heard in Austria, Bulgaria, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, and the United States. She aims to take the listener on a journey with every new piece, and her use of unique timbral combinations creates an expressive sound described as "poignant and intriguing, yet whimsical" -(Gabriele Proy, Vienna Radio Philharmonic.) Of all the awards her compositions have won, she is most chuffed about her piece "Piccolo piccolo Piccolo piccolo piccolo piccolo Piccolo piccolo'' winning fan-favorite during a 48-hour composition challenge. She is also passionate about using her art for social change, be it speaking against gun violence or composing specifically for queer performers.
As a performer, Alexa has performed in such venues as Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall and the Großersaal of the Vienna Musikverein, and has participated in events such as Wordfees cultural festival in Stellenbosch, South Africa and ColorTunes podcast with Fifth-House Ensemble. In both flute and voice, Alexa has specialized in the bookends of the classical genre: early music (pre-1750) with an emphasis on Germanic works, and new music, frequently playing premiers and workshopping pieces with living composers. In addition, Alexa has recently discovered a passion for electronic music, designing, building, and performing with new instruments that engage with the technological age.
Alexa has also recently entered the world of music research; motivated by spite stemming from a particularly bad private lesson, she is conducting independent research on conceptions of the compositional voice and its use in compositional pedagogy. Her preliminary research gained her research honors in music at her undergraduate university, and she continues having complex discussions about authenticity, creativity, and psychology with anyone who will indulge her curiosity. In addition, Alexa is the founder and host of the new music podcast Classical Schmassical: the anti-Classical classical music podcast, which seeks to engage many facets of her musical practice, including entrepreneurship, community engagement, artistic activism, and collaboration.
Leni Kreienberg
Graduate Assistant, 2023 — present
MM Performer-Composer, 24’
Leni Kreienberg is a composer and performer based in New York, originally from Albany. Leni’s work uses electronics to create and extend instruments–including the voice–and imagine relationships between objects, people, machines, locations, and the sounds they create. Leni builds instrument systems that connect the voice with analog electronics and live processing in Max MSP and Ableton. Their compositional mediums include text scores, sound collage, songs, improvisation, games, graphic scores, and classically notated scores in the Western tradition. Leni’s practice is driven by deep listening, community building, and a love for new sounds. In 2020, Leni released Mutual Reflections, a sound collage featuring recorded footage from improvised sessions with fellow performers from their diverse ensemble background, including orchestra, jazz combos, vocal ensembles, and noise collectives.
Leni graduated with a BA from Brown University, where they double-concentrated in biology and music, studying with Debra Mann, Daniela Schäcter, Dave Zinno, Marcel Sagesser, and Kristina Warren. In 2020, Leni was awarded the Marion Hassenfeld Premium for women and gender nonconforming students who excel in music and/or music appreciation. They are currently in the Performer-Composer MM program at the New School, where they study with Levy Lorenzo, Joan La Barbara, Fay Victor, Nathan Davis, and Wendy Eisenberg.
Arjan Singh Dogra
Graduate Assistant, 2023 — present
MM Composition, 24’
Arjan Singh is a composer, performer, and conductor based in New York City who creates art to understand and contextualize his relationship with time, nature, and his culture. His music invites audiences to challenge their own perception of time, and reflect on their connection to the natural and unnatural environments that surround them.
Arjan specializes in creating multidisciplinary works of art and regularly collaborates with filmmakers, game developers, dancers, and more, including partnerships with Juggernaut Entertainment, Boston Conservatory Dance, and UNICEF. Arjan’s most recent project is Plant Music, a project in which he builds instruments that use plants to make sound by collecting electronic data from plants to trigger sound effects and music. Other recent projects include Water Birds, a series of pieces for solo woodwind instruments and electronics inspired by birds that live in aquatic environments; Dil-e-Nadaan (Israel-Pellman Prize Honorable Mention), a string quartet recently read by the JACK Quartet; and Song, Shadow, a score written for a short film by the same name created by Remington Strecker and Cambell Thibo.
Indian Classical music plays a key role in Arjan’s writing and performance practice. He grew up studying Indian Classical violin with Dr. Sisirkana Dhar Choudhury, and it is such training that informs his compositional decisions in regards to harmony, structure, and pacing. Arjan also continues to write music strictly in the Indian Classical style, such as in his Alaap Cycle, a series of alaaps written for a variety of solo performers on different instruments.
As a performer, Arjan plays trombone (performances with the 8-bit Big Band, Berklee Contemporary Symphony Orchestra, and Motion Picture Orchestra), violin (featured soloist at Jordan Hall and Apple Headquarters), and woodwinds (bass clarinet with the BCSO, flute and clarinet with the Berklee Composers Sinfonietta). He has also served as a conductor for the CMC Festival Orchestra and Scoring Sessions Program. Arjan is currently learning trumpet and the bassoon and hopes to add both to his arsenal soon. Aside from his work as a conductor and performer, Arjan also works as an administrator, serving as the executive chair of the Mannes Composers Concert Committee as well as an Organizer of the Game Audio Workshop, an organization he co-founded to establish connections between student game composers, developers, and the game audio industry. He previously served as executive director of the Motion Picture Orchestra, president of the Classical Musicians Coalition at Berklee, and supervisor of the Berklee Core Music Tutoring Program.
Arjan recently graduated summa cum laude from the Berklee College of Music with a dual Bachelors Degree in Composition and Film Scoring, where he studied with Alla Cohen, Gregory Glancey, and Marti Epstein. During his time at Berklee, he was awarded with the Jeronimas Kacinkas Award as well as the Ralph Peterson Scholarship for outstanding compositional achievement. Currently, Arjan is pursuing a Masters Degree in Composition at the Mannes School of Music, where he was awarded the Martinu Composition Prize for his work Live Salmon, in recognition of “demonstrating a unique voice and originality in musical composition for orchestra”.
Ethan Cohn
Graduate Assistant, 2022 — 2023
MM Performer-Composer, ‘23
Born and raised in New York City, Ethan Cohn is a bass player, composer, improvisor, and avid explorer of the unknown. Known for his versatility across genres and his love of musical cross-pollination, his work reflects his sponge-like capacity to absorb and integrate his many interests into one unified, authentic voice. Collaboration being a central part of his practice, his compositions place an emphasis on melody and groove, and often involve improvisation. Ethan is currently interested in the potential of electronics as both a compositional tool and an interface for live performers and improvisors. Ethan can frequently be seen playing bass around New York with groups from all over the musical map, and is currently pursuing his Master’s degree at The New School’s Performer-Composer program.
Though he began by playing the cello as a reluctant child thrown into the rigorous classical music world, he discovered his true love of music as a teenager, after picking up the bass and playing along with his favorite albums. He soon began composing his own music, and at the age of 18 was awarded the opportunity to write a full orchestral piece for the New York Philharmonic, as part of their Very Young Composer’s program. Ethan went on to study at McGill University, where he graduated with a major in jazz performance and a minor in computer science. Over the next few years, he released three albums of his original music as leader and bassist The Plastic Waste Band, a psychedelic-jazz-rock group known for their commitment to environmental conservation and their refreshing approach to composed and improvised music.
In 2020, Ethan was selected as the bassist of Focusyear Band ‘21, an 8-piece international jazz ensemble located in Basel, Switzerland. Over the course of a year, the band worked with many of today’s luminaries in jazz and creative music, recorded an album, and proceeded to tour throughout Europe. Ethan is an alumnus of the Banff Workshop for Jazz & Creative Music, the Montreal Contemporary Music Lab, Ensemble Evolution, and the Generations International Jazz Festival. In the wake of COVID-19, he was a recipient of the ISJAC Relief Commission Grant for composition.
Adam Billings
Graduate Assistant, 2021 — 2022
MM Composition, ‘22
Adam Billings is a Pacific Northwest-based composer of contemporary music. Adam is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree under revered composer Dr. Robert Beaser. He is pursuing a Master's Degree in Composition at the Mannes School of Music under Timo Andres. From being raised in Washington state, Adam’s influences and inspiration come from the beauty and intricacy of the natural world. Much of Adam’s compositions depict natural landscapes, ecosystems, and geometric patterns seen on plants and animals. With a dual love for both contemporary concert music and electronic music, Adam is highly interested in finding the most organic means of juxtaposing musical forms and complimentary instrumentations of acoustics and electronics.
In 2019, the Bellingham Festival of Music curated a full-length concert of Adam’s music to be performed in Bellingham, WA as part of the Welcome Home Concert Series. Adam has received an honorarium from Western Washington University, where he was commissioned to compose a set of woodwind trios that could be played asynchronously, and over the internet during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Currently, Adam is working with Grammy Award-winning saxophonist, Jane Ira Bloom to create a custom electronic effects processor for Ms. Bloom’s live performance practice. Additionally, Adam is working with Dr. Levy Lorenzo to create original web applications that give users direct access to musical expression through the simplicity of a web browser. Adam continues to work towards his goal of finding ways to incorporate music and technology in the most organic, and expressive ways possible. Adam is currently founding a company that develops original, electronic musical instruments that are both inspired by, and can interact with, the natural world. As a composer living in the 21st century, Adam believes that his career does not solely revolve around writing music for commissions, but instead entails a multifaceted, socially-engaged, and entrepreneurial structure that spans a large portion of the music industry. Adam influences, advocates, and creates in the areas of the music industry in which he is most passionate.