Jacob Danziger is a composer and violinist from Michigan and New York City, where he received a BA in music from Columbia University. He is currently working towards an MFA in Electronic Music at Mills College, where he is focusing on an ongoing body of solo works for violin and Max/MSP. He is a member of the quiet band, Flashpapr, as well as the mostly quiet bands City Cricket, Tornado Family, Pale Male, and Wow City Shockers. He often performs or records with rock bands Saturday Looks Good To Me, His Name Is Alive, and Doveman, and has improvised with Tatsuya Nakatani, Exias-J, Boris Hauf, Okkyung Lee, Jessica Pavone, Matt Bauder and Aaron Siegel, among others. Current improvisation-based projects include duos with Aram Shelton and Zach Wallace, as well as a recent "live sound for silent films" collective that has been assembled by Steve Roden. He also runs the cd-r label, Naming Distances.
The installation, "WHY DO BIRDS," uses Max/MSP and Jitter to create a loop-based but non-repeating audio and visual environment. Images recorded on a walk home from WKCR 89.9 FM NYC at 6am on a Saturday morning in 2003. Audio recorded March 2006 at Mills College. "WHY DO BIRDS" is a question first asked by Dionne Warwick in 1964.