Hunter Brown is a Chicago-based musician and audio engineer whose experimental practice explores sonic representation, digital materiality, and computational abstraction through composition, improvisation, and performance. His work often foregrounds a technologically driven approach, employing unconventional analysis and synthesis algorithms, machine learning, artificial intelligence, machine listening, psychoacoustics, and spatial audio. Hunter's projects have recently focused on the connections between human sonic perception, machine listening, and digital artifice.
Improvisation is a core element of Hunter’s practice. He regularly develops and performs with his custom Laptop Improvisation Instrument, created in the Supercollider programming language. Hunter is involved in several ongoing improvisation-based projects, including Technical Reserve (with Dominic Coles and TJ Borden), Other Plastics (with Dominic Coles), Clout (with Jakob Heinemann), and the Brown/Wong Duo (with Eric Wong). He has also collaborated with a range of musicians, including Carol Genetti, Chris Riggs, Ishmael Ali, Jack Langdon, Jack Wright, Kieran Daly, Ken Vandermark, Molly Jones, Michael Speers, Michelle Lou, Peter Maunu, Riley Leitch, and Tom Weeks.
Hunter’s work has been presented internationally at festivals, conferences, universities, and venues such as Big Ears (Knoxville), Bim Bom Studios (Chicago), Conference on AI Music Creativity (Graz), Constellation (Chicago), Darmstädter Ferienkurse (Darmstadt), DePaul University (Chicago), Elastic Arts (Chicago), Epiphany Center for the Arts (Chicago), Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago), Festival Nueva Ópera (Buenos Aires), High Desert Soundings (Johsua Tree), Hundred Years Gallery (London), Hyde Park Jazz Festival (Chicago), International Computer Music Conference (Daegu), International Workshop on Multilayer Music Representation and Processing (Milan), IRCAM Manifeste (Paris), Jazz Gallery (Milwaukee), Le Non Jazz (Paris), Line Upon Line Composer Festival (Austin), Lobe 4DSOUND (Vancouver), Logan Center for the Arts (Chicago), Museum of Surgical Science (Chicago), New Interfaces for Musical Expression (Porto Alegre), Petersberg Arts Space (Berlin), San Francisco State University (San Francisco), Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States National Conference (St. Cloud), The Beat Kitchen (Chicago), Tritriangle (Chicago), and University of California San Diego (San Diego).
He is a freelance audio engineer specializing in contemporary classical, improvised, and electroacoustic music. Hunter is the technical director for Ensemble Dal Niente and has provided technical support, performed live electronics, and served as live sound engineer for various ensembles, including Beyond This Point (Chicago), EnsembleKollektiv (Berlin), Fonema Consort (Chicago), Fulcrum Point (Chicago), The Grossman Ensemble (Chicago), Nois Saxophone Quartet (Chicago), Tak Ensemble (NYC), the University of Chicago New Music Ensemble (Chicago), and Wet Ink Ensemble (NYC).
Hunter co-runs the record label Party Perfect!!! (with Dominic Coles) and curates Bloc Sound, a series dedicated to music and sound art from the aesthetic fringes of experimental music. He has also taught electronic music production and composition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the University of Chicago.