Math Rocks: Queens Native Rick St. Hilaire brought the noise at MoMath last weekend

Queens Native Rick St. Hilaire. Photo courtesy of MoMath.

By Phineas Rueckert

It’s not everyday that the sound-mixing genius who brought Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys, Chris Brown, LL Cool J, Mariah Carey, and Missy Elliott’s music to life goes behind the curtains of how he does it. But that’s exactly what Rick St. Hilaire, an audio engineer who has worked with all of these artists and more, did last weekend.

St. Hilaire, a Queens native, had a busy schedule at the National Museum of Mathematics, located just next to Madison Square Park in Manhattan.

On Friday, St. Hilaire led a free and open-to-the-public discussion where he discussed how he uses math to enhance the aesthetic of the music he produces. The next night, he teamed up with DJ Spooky and saxophonist Marcus Miller for a set as part of the museum’s “Quadrivium” series.

“It was an honor and a pleasure having Rick,” Miller, who runs the Quadrivium series, said. “Rick is a treasure trove of engineering information and hearing how he blends some very technical and specific ideas with the need to drive motion is something I find really rare.”

Quadrivium began in February of 2018, and has featured eight performances that fuse music and math — bringing a new beat to the National Museum of Mathematics.

“It’s not just Quadrivium, it’s this whole world of math and music and creativity that we’re bringing together at the museum,” Cindy Lawrence, the CEO and Executive Director of the museum, said.