Paul Pinto is a composer, writer and multi-disciplinary performer who founded the music collectives thingNY, Varispeed and LoveLoveLove. During COVID times, Paul has written music for Modulation (Prototype Festival), Antigone (Colgate University), Mad Forest (Fisher Center), and Tartuffe (Moliere in the Park), and co-created the online shows SubtracTTTTTTTTT, A Series of Landscapes, Motivators and Dear Nancine with thingNY. He’s also written a string quartet, and created music videos for his songs Just Love, Dr. Peetee, Beatrice, and with Katelyn Halpern, Erin Rogers, and Kameron Neal. He’s the guest artistic director of the 2021 Look+Listen Festival.
“WHITENESS is a multi-channel immersive choral music video, a self-portrait of my identities told through chants, rants, and micro pop songs. A chorus of floating heads muse (in 4-to-40-part harmony) on privilege, appropriation, and the history (or plague) of “whiteness” on this continent. Much of it takes the form of joyful self-interrogation, and hype-man exclamation. The maddening inner thoughts of a mixed race American, visibly brown, and invisibly trying to not be so white reflect all the severity and silliness of the anxieties of skin color.”