Dave Soldier

"One thing about Dave Soldier is that coming to new works with any expectations about style, form or language is fruitless." - New York Times. Soldier played viola and guitar and studied at 17 with Roscoe Mitchell (Art Ensemble of Chicago), and Otto Luening, inventor of the synthesizer. Soldier worked as violinist/ guitarist / arranger in genres including rock (Bo Diddley, each of the Velvet Underground, David Byrne), folk (Pete Seeger, Eliza Carthy), jazz (Tony Williams, Regina Carter), flamenco, and classical styles. He formed the Soldier String Quartet, creating repertoire marrying classical counterpoint with punk, hip-hop and jazz polyphony. This led to opera (The Eighth Hour of Amduat from 5000 year old hieroglyphs), realization of Kepler’s Music of the Spheres, flamenco-inspired music (Calo’, Zajal), and oratorios with Kurt Vonnegut (Ice-9 Ballads). Beyond the concert hall, he founded the Thai Elephant Orchestra with 16 elephants, coached birds and children to compose (Mayan Mountain Music, Da HipHop Raskalz, Songbird Instrumentals). The People’s Choice Music, based on surveys, includes The Most Unwanted Music, ironically his most streamed work. The Brainwave Music Project creates music from EEGs. He formed the Delta punk band the Kropotkins. Under the name David Sulzer, he is a professor and neuroscientist at Columbia University. His book, Music, Math and Mind (Columbia Press, 2021), bridges his identities, explaining how physics and math underlie art.