Samantha Weinert is a frequent collaborator with Marc Kate and is interested both in live improvisational performance and exploring new ways to expressively and meaningfully interface with electronic instruments.  She aims to deconstruct commonly-held assumptions about how such instruments are played, and feels strongly that new paradigms of instrument design lead to new modes of experience and inevitably to new forms of music. Her exploration of these ideas has led to her current instrument, a synthesizer played by breath controller and modified polypressure keyboard. She studied fine art, music, and philosophy at the University of Illinois (Urbana) and currently works as a synth tech at Waveformless in Temescal, Oakland.