M (Em) Denney is a composer-performer, experimenter, and improviser currently based in Iowa City. She is a founding member of LA composer’s collective This Machine, a member of experimental guitar group Trio Ampliphonic (with Alan S. Tofighi and Michael Jon Fink), a member of the LA Reader’s Chorus and releases ambient music as Lithops. They focus on feedback, drone, live sampling, and glitchy audio processing as a way of engaging with ideas of nature, space, and memory. In all of these projects, M looks to create space for frank, honest, and vulnerable listening, encouraging audiences and collaborators to inhabit the works and explore these spaces together. Recently she has been an artist in residence at the Westben Performing Arts Center and a guest artist at the EDME Festival. Born in Iowa City, M grew up in the Washington D.C. area, received a BM in Jazz Studies from Shenandoah University, and holds an MFA in Composition and Performance from California Institute of the Arts. They are currently pursuing a PhD in Composition at The University of Iowa.