Steve Long, a lifelong New Yorker from Canarsie, Brooklyn, is an artist and organizer working with sound, language, and space. His interest in music began at eleven, when a derelict piece of furniture—formerly known as a piano—was moved into his family’s home. He went on to study composition at the Manhattan School of Music, earn a BA in Language Studies from the American University of Rome, and receive an MM in Contemporary Improvisation from the New England Conservatory.

For Long, creative work is an act of facilitation, driven by a need to bring people together. He constructs situations that allow collaborators to push into corners and luxuriate in both physical and metaphysical space. His work imagines collective futures unencumbered by incessant categorization. Whether making music, organizing a concert, or feeding a room full of people, he is interested in creating the conditions for something unexpected to happen collectively.

His ongoing project Collective puts this idea into practice, bringing together professional musicians, amateurs, students, and curious participants from across genres and skill levels to perform large-scale compositions involving upwards of 70 people. Designed to be rehearsed in as little as fifteen minutes, the works trade virtuosity and hierarchy for listening, trust, and real-time negotiation—making the act of gathering itself part of the composition. 

That impulse extends well beyond the stage. Long is a curator and organizer at the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center (WAH Center) and runs the Pentiment series at St. Michael’s Church on West 99th Street in Manhattan. He has mounted large-scale events including WAKE!, an eight-hour marathon commemorating the life and work of ISSUE Project Room co-founder Dana Maisel. At St. Michael’s, he is also the chef for the Saturday Kitchen, where he and a team prepare more than 400 meals each week for people in need.

Across these activities runs the same deep desire to bring people together across scenes, disciplines, and circumstances. In an endless quest to make categories less useful, Long approaches composing, performing, curating, teaching, cooking, and organizing as different versions of the same proposition: create a space, invite people into it, and see what becomes possible.

Recordings of his solo and collaborative work have been released on Endectomorph, Astral Spirits, and Tripticks Tapes, among others.

As an educator, Long has given guest lectures and workshops at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, Northeastern University, the University of the Pacific, and the University of Pittsburgh. He currently teaches at The New School.