Long inspired by global traditions and spontaneous music-making, Tina Blaine (aka “bean”) is a musician, composer and sound designer who served as executive director of RhythmixCultural Works from 2010-2022, establishing the organization as an “arts hub” on the island of Alameda, CA.

She holds a Master’s of Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon University where she also taught for six years developing collective experiences that integrate game design, sonic discovery, and interactive media. Before joining CMU, bean worked at Interval Research as a musical “interactivist,” leading a development team in the creation of the Jam-O-Drum, a collaborative audiovisual instrument exhibited at the Experience Music Project in Seattle, Zeum in San Francisco, LABoral in Gijon, Spain and Ars Electronica’s Museum of the Future in Linz, Austria. Bean has composed music for NPR, video games, TV and documentary soundtracks and currently performs with the Japanese taiko fusion ensemble Maze Daiko. She has also recorded with Brian Eno, Carlos Santana, Mickey Hart, D’Cuckoo, Tracy Blackman, Haunted by Waters, and more. Bean’s exploration of musical interaction techniques in the 1980’s led to building electronic MIDI controller instruments and large-scale audience participation devices for live performance with the multimedia ensemble D’Cuckoo. More recently, she’s been a marine conservation volunteer and recording underwater sounds wherever the current takes her.