Modney is a composer, violinist and 2026 Guggenheim Fellow working at the nexus of composition, improvisation, and interpretation. A “new-music luminary” (The New York Times) hailed as “one of today’s most intrepid experimentalists” (Bandcamp Daily), Modney is a foremost interpreter of adventurous contemporary music, and has cultivated a holistic artistic practice as a composer, solo improviser, bandleader, writer, and collaborator. A highly detailed relationship to sound production on the violin is foundational to Modney’s creative practice, with a particular interest in complex timbres, Just Intonation, and in exploring the perceptual space between improvisation and notation. Modney is the violinist and Executive Director of the composer-performer collective
Wet Ink Ensemble, and a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble.
photo: Alexander Perrelli
Modney’s 2024 release of chamber music, Ascending Primes (Pyroclastic Records), featuring acclaimed creative musicians such as Anna Webber, Nate Wooley, Charmaine Lee, Ben LaMar Gay, and Cory Smythe, has been hailed as “a torrential and stunning record, which sounds like nothing else and serves as a peremptory statement: there is a new school in New York (Blow Up Magazine – Italy)”, and as a “detail-packed endeavor that’s as wondrous as it is demanding (Peter Margasak, Bandcamp Daily).”
Modney’s debut solo record, Engage (New Focus), was lauded by The New York Times as “…a highlight of 2018…one of the most intriguing programs of the year…radical in its execution”. The triple-disc album features music written for Modney by Kate Soper, Eric Wubbels, Taylor Brook, and Sam Pluta alongside groundbreaking interpretations of works by Anthony Braxton and J.S. Bach. The third disc is devoted to Modney’s own solo works “…where [he] pushes the boundaries of his instrument and his body without any kind of treatments, alternate tunings, or editing… powerful testimony to sound-seeking by one of today’s most intrepid experimentalists (Bandcamp Daily).”
Modney’s followup album of quartet compositions in 2022, Near To Each (Carrier Records), featuring Ingrid Laubrock (sax), Cory Smythe (piano), Mariel Roberts Musa (cello), and Modney on violin, was lauded by KLANG as “wonderfully composed… remarkably performed… a quartet that is playing individually and collectively at the height of their powers.”
Modney has received awards from The Guggenheim Foundation, The Shifting Foundation, and Millay Arts. His music has been performed at the Big Ears Festival (USA), the Ear We Are Festival (CH), and at Wet Ink’s 25th Anniversary Festival (NYC). Upcoming projects include Nighthawks, a new album of septet music written for Ingrid Laubrock (sax), Madison Greenstone (clarinet), Mariel Roberts Musa (cello), Vicky Chow (piano), Luke Stewart (bass), and Dan Weiss (drums).
MODNEY 