Biography
Composer Tonia Ko has collaborated with leading musicians across a variety of mediaβfrom acoustic concert pieces to improvisatory works with electronics. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Honolulu, Hawaiβi, she has developed an international profile with pieces performed across the USA, Europe, and in Asia.
Notable recent projects include Year of the Orchid commissioned by the Brooklyn Art Song Society, Concertino for Scavengers commissioned by Scottish cellist Louise McMonagle, and Her Land, Expanded, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall and American Composers Orchestra. Recipient of a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, Ko has received grants from the Barlow Endowment, Chamber Music America, as well as the PRS and Hinrichsen Foundations in the UK. She has served as guest composer for many festivals, including the Composers Conference (USA), Windhoek at Hfm Trossingen (Germany), and Plurisons (Brazil). She was the 2015-17 Composer-in-Residence for Young Concert Artists in New York.
In the attempt to follow aural, visual, and tactile instincts in a holistic way, Ko mediates between the identities of composer, sound artist, and improviser. This has sparked an intense interest in the relationship between found objects and musical instruments, most prominently βBreath, Containedβ, an ongoing project using bubble wrap. As a bubble wrap virtuoso, she has performed with other noted improvisers at CafΓ© OTO, Hundred Years Gallery, and the Ear Taxi Festival. The bubble wrap concerto Breath, Contained III was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation at the Library of Congress for Contemporaneous, and subsequently performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and Luxembourg Philharmonic, featuring Ko as soloist.
Ko earned a B.M. with Highest Distinction from the Eastman School of Music and an M.M. from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. She holds a D.M.A. from Cornell University, where she studied with Steven Stucky and Kevin Ernste. Her practice has been enriched by further studies at the Tanglewood Music Center and Royaumont AcadΓ©mie Voix Nouvelles. She was the 2018-19 Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Chicagoβs Center for Contemporary Composition. Upon relocating to the United Kingdom, she served as 2019-20 Honorary Research Fellow at City, University of London and is currently Associate Professor in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London.
