TEACHING

Since the Fall 2019 semester, Neil Rolnick has been teaching as an Adjunct Faculty member at NYU’s Department of Music Technology in the Steinhardt School of Music and Performing Arts Professions. He also teaches a limited number of independent students in composition and music technology in his studio in New York City.  Please contact him if you are interested in individual lessons.

From January 1981 through May 2013 Rolnick was on the faculty at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, at the rank of tenured Full Professor since 1991. While at Rensselaer he was the founding director of the iEAR Studios. He led the Arts Department through the start up of the nation’s first MFA program in Integrated Electronic Arts, and the start up of the undergraduate degree program in Electronic Media, Arts and Communications (EMAC). Since its inception, the MFA program has been one of the leading centers for the development of artists in a variety of media – including music, visual arts, video, performance art, activist art and culture jamming – all with an engagement in new media and technology, and a disregard for disciplinary boundaries. In 1999 Rolnick made the first proposal for the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), which has since been built, and serves as a primary venue for experimental art and music in New York State’s Capital District.

Many of the students Neil worked with over the years in the MFA and PhD programs at Rensselaer have gone on to establish careers in music and the arts, including: Roberto Bocci, Svjetlana Bukvic, Damian Catera, Seth Cluett, Kyle DeCamp, Johnny DeKam, Andrew Deutsch, Yehuda Duenyas, Lisa Erdman, Bob Gluck, Julia Heyward, Melanie Printup Hope, Holland Hopson, Collier Hyams, John J. A. Jannone, Adriene Jenik, Jesse Pearlman Karlsberg, Penny Lane, Stephanie Loveless, Tara Mateik, Jennifer & Kevin McCoy, Stephan Moore, Hasnul Saidon, Jesse Stiles, Sara Tack, Joshua Thorson and Adam Zaretsky.