ABOUT |
Steven Leffue, DMA
Independent Sound Designer
Director, Americas Region @ International Computer Music Association
About Me
Beethoven was my first love. Then it was jazz, rock, free jazz, free improv, and the avant-garde. I spend most of my creative time now in the space between Pure Data, Ableton, noise music, black metal, Indian classical, Terry Riley, John Coltrane, synthwave, Bach and Haendel.
The beginning of my career was spent as a musician, teaching at the International School of Music in Washington DC and playing contemporary music on the East Coast. I worked with really cool artists including Tom Delio, Ron Stabinsky, Tatsuya Nakatani, Rhonda Taylor, Kjell Nordensen, Stanley Zappa, Michael Foster, Michael Evans, Robert Morris, Andrew Mead, The Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, The The Great Noise Ensemble, and Inscape Chamber Orchestra, to name a few.
In 2011, I co-founded JACK (jackny.org), a Brooklyn based performing arts space which focuses on modeling equity and justice in the experimental arts. JACK won an OBIE and has developed into an incubator for voracious emerging artists. While there, I developed JACK's music programming which to date has presented hundreds of internationally renowned artists in Clinton Hill Brooklyn. including Evan Parker, Thurston Moore, Okkyung Lee, Peter Evans, Daniel Carter, Louise D.E. Jensen, Joe McPhee, Cactus Truck, Ingrid Laubrock, Brian Chase, Mark Dresser, Tatsuya Nakatani, Kojo Roney, Borbetomagus, Ron Stabinsky, William Parker, Ron Anderson, Isabelle Dutoit, Michael Foster and others.
While at JACK I started getting work as a sound designer for theater and other types of live performance. This was an artistic renaissance began with immersive productions of Hoi Polloi productions including Baal, Toshiki Okada's Quiet, Comfort, Plato's The Republic, WGRG-TV, Beckett, etc. Since then, I've designed and/or composed music for original work by an extensive list of critical contemporary voices (playwrights) including Zora Howard, Emily Feldman, Lily Padilla, Anna Moench, Steph Del Rosso, Ella Rose Chary, Keiko Green, Kate Hamill, Nathan Davis, and Charles Smith.
Even though I'm passionate about live performance, I'm also a total tech nerd. I get artistically inspired by digging down into digital signal processing, audio algorithms, and analogue synthesizers. I like to think that by understanding the hidden truths and maths behind existence and storytelling, I can make art that is cutting edge yet completely relevant. My upbringing in the Pure Data programming paradigm set the stage for creating all kinds of cool computer music "instruments", working with interactive processes and generative musical systems, HRTFs, BRIRs, and eventually joining the board of the International Computer Music Association.
I'm a lifelong student, and have passed on what I know by teaching sound design, saxophone, and composition at Ohio University, the University of California San Diego, the UC Academic Connections Program, and the International School of Music. I've presented masterclasses on contemporary composition and improvisation in the United States and Europe at institutions like Northwestern University, Carnegie Mellon, Duke University, and the Conservatoire Nationale de Boulogne-Billancourt.
My mentors include: John Sampen, Jean-Michel Goury, Shahrokh Yadegari, Miller Puckette, Jonathan Helton, Tom DeLio, and Dale Underwood. I am eternally grateful to all of my teachers for their perspectives, attention, and for what they helped me to discover; I'm still working to pay them back.
The beginning of my career was spent as a musician, teaching at the International School of Music in Washington DC and playing contemporary music on the East Coast. I worked with really cool artists including Tom Delio, Ron Stabinsky, Tatsuya Nakatani, Rhonda Taylor, Kjell Nordensen, Stanley Zappa, Michael Foster, Michael Evans, Robert Morris, Andrew Mead, The Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, The The Great Noise Ensemble, and Inscape Chamber Orchestra, to name a few.
In 2011, I co-founded JACK (jackny.org), a Brooklyn based performing arts space which focuses on modeling equity and justice in the experimental arts. JACK won an OBIE and has developed into an incubator for voracious emerging artists. While there, I developed JACK's music programming which to date has presented hundreds of internationally renowned artists in Clinton Hill Brooklyn. including Evan Parker, Thurston Moore, Okkyung Lee, Peter Evans, Daniel Carter, Louise D.E. Jensen, Joe McPhee, Cactus Truck, Ingrid Laubrock, Brian Chase, Mark Dresser, Tatsuya Nakatani, Kojo Roney, Borbetomagus, Ron Stabinsky, William Parker, Ron Anderson, Isabelle Dutoit, Michael Foster and others.
While at JACK I started getting work as a sound designer for theater and other types of live performance. This was an artistic renaissance began with immersive productions of Hoi Polloi productions including Baal, Toshiki Okada's Quiet, Comfort, Plato's The Republic, WGRG-TV, Beckett, etc. Since then, I've designed and/or composed music for original work by an extensive list of critical contemporary voices (playwrights) including Zora Howard, Emily Feldman, Lily Padilla, Anna Moench, Steph Del Rosso, Ella Rose Chary, Keiko Green, Kate Hamill, Nathan Davis, and Charles Smith.
Even though I'm passionate about live performance, I'm also a total tech nerd. I get artistically inspired by digging down into digital signal processing, audio algorithms, and analogue synthesizers. I like to think that by understanding the hidden truths and maths behind existence and storytelling, I can make art that is cutting edge yet completely relevant. My upbringing in the Pure Data programming paradigm set the stage for creating all kinds of cool computer music "instruments", working with interactive processes and generative musical systems, HRTFs, BRIRs, and eventually joining the board of the International Computer Music Association.
I'm a lifelong student, and have passed on what I know by teaching sound design, saxophone, and composition at Ohio University, the University of California San Diego, the UC Academic Connections Program, and the International School of Music. I've presented masterclasses on contemporary composition and improvisation in the United States and Europe at institutions like Northwestern University, Carnegie Mellon, Duke University, and the Conservatoire Nationale de Boulogne-Billancourt.
My mentors include: John Sampen, Jean-Michel Goury, Shahrokh Yadegari, Miller Puckette, Jonathan Helton, Tom DeLio, and Dale Underwood. I am eternally grateful to all of my teachers for their perspectives, attention, and for what they helped me to discover; I'm still working to pay them back.
Service and Resumé
Co-Founder, board member, & curator emeritus - JACK, Brooklyn
Associate Director - Ohio University School of Theater
Assistant Professor of Sound Design - Ohio University School of Theater
Lecturer of Sound Design - University of California San Diego
Teaching Artist, Saxophone - Ohio University School of Music
Director - International School of Music, Bethesda, MD
Associate Director - Ohio University School of Theater
Assistant Professor of Sound Design - Ohio University School of Theater
Lecturer of Sound Design - University of California San Diego
Teaching Artist, Saxophone - Ohio University School of Music
Director - International School of Music, Bethesda, MD
Awards & Certifications
Member - International Computer Music Association
Craig Noel Award for Outstanding Sound Design (2019)
First Prize (medaille d'or) with Honors - Conservatoire National de Bolougne, Paris, France
First Prize Coleman Chamber Music Competition
Doctor of Music
Master of Fine Arts, Sound Design
Craig Noel Award for Outstanding Sound Design (2019)
First Prize (medaille d'or) with Honors - Conservatoire National de Bolougne, Paris, France
First Prize Coleman Chamber Music Competition
Doctor of Music
Master of Fine Arts, Sound Design