Biography
Tonia Koβs creative evolution is largely guided by three conceptual pillars: texture, physical movement, and the relationship between melody and memory. These ideas permeate her work across a variety of mediaβfrom instrumental solos and large ensemble pieces, to improvisations and sound installations. No matter how traditional or experimental the medium, Ko's work reveals a core that is at once whimsical, questioning, and lyrical.
Recipient of a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, Ko has been commissioned by leading soloists and ensembles from a broad range of the music scene. She recently collaborated with Riot Ensemble, Tangram Collective, Grossman Ensemble, and Spektral Quartet. Her work has been performed at prominent venues such as Walt Disney Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, LSO St. Lukeβs, and featured at the Hertzbreakerz Sound Spaces Festival and Thailand International Composition Festival.
Ko has received grants and awards from the Fromm and Barlow Foundations, Chamber Music America, American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as residencies at MacDowell, Copland House, and MASS MoCA. She served as the 2015-2017 Composer-in-Residence for Young Concert Artists.
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 interdisciplinary connectionsβ most prominently βBreath, Containedβ, an ongoing project using bubble wrap as a canvas for both art and sound. As a bubble wrap virtuoso, she has performed with other noted improvisers at CafΓ© OTO, Hundred Years Gallery, and the Ear Taxi Festival. She received a 2021 Koussevitzky Commission to compose a concerto for bubble wrap and chamber orchestra, featuring her as soloist with Contemporaneous.
Ko was born in Hong Kong in 1988 and grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii. She 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 was appointed Lecturer in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London in 2020.
