Sounding Out Ithaca

Annie Lewandowski is a composer, performer, and senior lecturer in the Department of Music at Cornell University. In 2017, she began studying humpback whale song with pioneering bioacoustician Katy Payne. Ms. Lewandowski’s 2018 composition, “Cetus: Life After Life,” for humpback whale song and chimes, explores the evolution of Hawaiian humpback song from 1977-1981. She has been awarded grants from the Atkinson Center for Sustainability for her research exploring the creative minds of humpback whales and collaborated with Google Creative Lab to create the broadly adopted public web tool “Pattern Radio: Whale Songs” for teaching AI to recognize patterns in humpback whale song. Ms. Lewandowski has released ten recordings with her band Powerdove and has presented her work at festivals and venues across the United States and Europe, including the Casa da Musica (Porto, Portugal), the Hippodrome (London), the Frieze Arts Fair (London), and REDCAT (Los Angeles). She is a 2014 Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow.

Multi-instrumentalist and graphic designer Bubba Crumrine has been a catalyst in Central New York’s underground music community since 2008. Bubba performs ambient works solo under their own name and as the guitarist/vocalist for the Ithaca avant-rock trio BRIAN!. After founding and leading Ithaca Underground for a decade, they turned their focus to performance, composition, and graphic design, while continuing their passion for event curation. As a designer, Bubba shares a deep love of concert posters and DIY shows. They bring a minimalist, colorful aesthetic to the media and work with artists and promoters, from veteran to up-and-coming, who are interested in fostering community around new and challenging music while providing space and encouragement to the underrepresented. Their design work was featured at the Community Arts Partnership ArtSpace Gallery in “A Decade in The Underground” (2017).

Mel Crumrine, an American-born artist and writer, studied English and studio art at Bard College, and human development at Empire State College. The co-founder of Ithaca Underground and IU Arts Liaison, Mel is a member of the Tompkins County Public Library Exhibition Committee, dedicated to providing the area’s diverse community with opportunities to view and discuss art at no cost, as well as providing opportunities for area artists from all walks of life to have their expressions and works showcased. Writer and illustrator of “Job Doesn’t Make the Girl” (featured in Free!, a publication of Ithaca Underground) as well as writer, illustrator, and publisher of “I May Have Been Better Off Without You: Growing Up Fat in a Fat-Hating World,” Mel’s current work explores the myth of femininity and masculinity, especially within classic social gender spheres; the cultural distaste, disgust, and hatred of the fat body, particularly in relation to feminism; and the effect of “the camera” (e.g., social media and cell phone cameras) on the female sense of self-worth.

Sammus (Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo) is a rap artist and producer from Ithaca, NY, with a Ph.D. in science and technology studies from Cornell University. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University in the music department and the Director of Audio at Glow Up Games, a game studio led by women of color. Since 2010, Sammus has written, produced, and recorded three full-length albums (one of which charted on Billboard), three EPs, a collaborative video game-themed concept album with the MC Mega Ran, a critically acclaimed beat tape, and countless one-off collaborations with artists from a variety of genres as well as video game developers, podcasters, and filmmakers. Her story as an artist at the intersections of academia and Afrofuturism has led to performances and speaking engagements at a range of conferences, conventions, festivals, and campus events. Sammus’s live shows, characterized by her explosive energy and the inclusion of elements of cosplay, bring together a diverse array of activists, hip hop heads, punks, and self-identified nerds and geeks, among others.

Taimur Gibson began attending Ithaca Underground events and volunteering for the organization after moving to Ithaca from Rochester in 2013. They were invited to join the Board of Directors in 2018 and selected as Board Chair in 2019. Taimur has contributed to nearly every aspect of IU, including long-term strategy and planning, fundraising, outreach, event curation, and day-of-show operations. They have also been instrumental in shifting IU’s focus to artists and audiences belonging to identities historically marginalized in the music scene, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA*, femme, and the differently abled. Continuing Ithaca Underground’s longstanding focus on young people, Taimur established a successful internship program with local high schools and colleges. During the pandemic, they have coordinated IU livestream concerts on Twitch.tv, including fundraisers for local Black Lives Matter organizations. Taimur created their own electronic music project, “bit rot,” which features experimental methods of interacting with instruments through a custom MIDI interface that they developed with an Arduino microcontroller and 3D-printed materials.