Dafna Naphtali

Dafna Naphtali is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Technology. She graduated from NYU, M.M. (Music Technology), B. Mus. (Vocal Performance).  Prior to joining the full-time faculty in Fall 2024, Dafna served as adjunct faculty at NYU for 25+ years, teaching about music technology, Max programming, electronic music performance and composition, and soundwalking.

Dafna is an active electronic-musician, singer, instrumentalist, composer and performer of experimental, interactive electro-acoustic music. Drawing on an ecclectic musical background and using her custom interactive computer programming (Max), she performs and exhibits work internationally. Her projects include works for multi-channel sound, music robots, Disklavier piano, and site-specific interactive soundwalks.  As singer, she’s performs Cage, Stockhausen (Stimmung), La Monte Young, Eisler/Brecht, also invited to projects of Shelley Hirsch, Merche Blasco, Hans Tammen. She toured Portugal/Spain with Barbez band singing Spanish Civil War songs .

Dafna’s longest running project is her live sound-processing of acoustic instruments and voice, as her self-made “instrument.” She’s performs and released duo recordings with: Luis Tabuenca, Chuck Bettis, Ras Moshe Burnett, Edith Lettner, Jen Baker and NYU faculty members Gordon Beeferman and Hans Tammen. She gathered all her duos into a large ensemble, (DUOS++OCTET), for a performance at Roulette Intermedium in New York, with support in a Guggenheim fellowship for this ongoing project. She is currently writing a book on this work, "Live Processing & Improvisation."

Fellowships, awards, commissions include; Guggenheim (Music Composition 2023), NY Foundation for the Arts (3 time fellow), Mutual Mentorship for Musicians, NY State Council on the Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council, Franklin Furnace, American Composers Forum, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, American Music Center; Residencies at MacDowell, Kimmel Nelson Harding, Montalvo, Music/OMI, STEIM, and Signal Culture.