Mike Vernusky creates music for live performance, radiophonic sound, and audiovisual experiences.

Mike Vernusky’s music has been described as “brash” (New York Times), “isolationist” (The Wire),  “especially otherworldly” (New Music USA), “strange & intriguing” (Exclaim), and “étonnante” (EtherReal France). As an emerging composer, he received the Grand Prize in Music at the Digital Art Awards from Keio University in Japan, and was awarded the MATA Commission.

Vernusky is also an avid field recordist, having recorded deep in the Amazon to the snake charmers of Marrakech; from the bushveld of South Africa to the beautiful cacophony that is India. Combined with vintage electronic instruments and found sounds from various forms of physical media, Mike creates large scale, often transcontinental musical works and releases them in album format.

Mike has presented his music and ideas at Shanghai Conservatory, İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi, Harvard University, Institut Français Tokyo, Alte Schmiede Vienna, and University of Huddersfield, UK. His music is published on BBC Audio, MIT Press, The Wire, Ferns Recordings (FR), Audiobulb (UK), Quiet Design, and several others.

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Mike is a tireless archivist of eccentric analog audio recordings, amassing a near-chimeric collection of highly obscure vinyl, lacquer, flexidisc, and instantaneous recordings from around the world. Using a variety of turntables and handmade devices, he traverses the endless possibilities of found sound as metaphor and reimagines spectral spaces through the unconventional use of audio technologies. These sonic artifacts often find their way into his compositions, primarily through his ever-expanding hauntological found sound work, The Holy Sea, a home listening experience now over 24-hours long.

Vernusky lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, percussionist & figure skater Carolyn Trowbridge. After 16 years of living a double life as an independent artist and Experience Analyst for Apple, he is now a freelance composer for mixed media.

Vernusky's music has featured in FILE & FIME São Paulo, Sonic Mmabolela South Africa, Marrakech Biennale, Experimental Intermedia, Art Basel Miami, and the Valdez Theatre Conference in Alaska. He is supported by Music at the Anthology, El Centro Mexicano para la Música y las Artes Sonoras, MetLife Creative Connections, and ASCAP.

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Holding grad and undergrad degrees in composition and classical guitar from The University of Texas at Austin and Mercyhurst University, respectively, his former mentors and teachers include William Duckworth, Denis Smalley, Francisco López, Kevin Puts, and Albert Glinsky, among others. During the pandemic, Vernusky studied Indian classical voice technique with La Monte Young.

Vernusky recently returned from the Ecuadorian Amazon with Gordon Hempton.