The greatest gifts of my life are my wife Martha and our children Abigail and Luca.
I have dedicated a large part of my life to the study, teaching, and performance of fretted instruments. I perform on a ten-string guitar built for me by the Dean of American luthiers, R. E. Bruné (Evanston, IL, 1990, Opus 515). This instrument is particularly appropriate for the performance of the works for lute (or rather, Lauteninstrumente) of J. S. Bach (1685-1750) and S. L. Weiss (1686-1750), and it was commissioned to Mr. Bruné with this goal in mind.
I am the main curator of an acoustics lab built in honor of the memory of composer, mathematician, sound designer and electroacoustics engineer Francisco Iovino, my beloved brother, who gave so much to the world in his all-too-short life. I also operate an analog recording studio in his memory. My approach to recording is strongly influenced by the "purist" philosophy pursued by Kavi Alexander and Pierre Sprey. Recording is done on analog tape, using minimalistic analog preamplification, and digitized in 192 kHz/24 bit. We have an extensive collection of microphones, both tube and solid state, both small and large diaphragm, both classic and modern. Each of them has been selected based on its acoustic signature. Great attention is placed on details such as cabling, power conditioning, tube selection, and vibration control. The pool of synthesizers includes classic analog units (Moog, Prophet) as well as contemporary workstations. Playback equipment includes solid state, tube, and hybrid designs, both class A and class A/B for preamplification and power amplification. We have an extensive variety of monitor designs as well. Record playback units include state-of-the-art direct-drive, belt-drive, and rim drive.