Leilehua Lanzilotti (Hawaii) is a composer and multimedia artist whose works often explore dramatic expanses of color and timbre, engaging with themes of place, displacement, and layered time.
Lanzilotti was a 2022 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Music for with eyes the color of time (string orchestra), which the Pulitzer committee called, “a vibrant composition . . . that distinctly combines experimental string textures and episodes of melting lyricism.” Other prestigious honors Lanzilotti has received include a Creative Capital Award, a Native Arts & Cultures Foundation’s SHIFT – Transformative Change and Indigenous Arts Award, and recognition as a 2025 USA Fellow. Lanzilotti has received additional distinguished fellowships & residencies through The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Casa Wabi, the Merwin Conservancy, the McKnight Visiting Composer Residency Program, the Copland House Residency Award, and the MacGeorge Fellowship at the University of Melbourne among others.
As a composer, Lanzilotti’s works have been presented at international festivals such as Ars Electronica (Austria), Sonic Arts Biennial (The Netherlands), Un-Earthed: a festival of listening and environment (UK), Ojai Music Festival (USA), and Thailand International Composition Festival; and in halls such as the Philharmonie de Paris and Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre. In fall 2025 Lanzilotti’s “luminous new piece” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), of light and stone opened the New York Philharmonic’s season and Gustavo Dudamel’s first concert as the orchestra’s Music & Artistic Director designate.
As a recording artist, Lanzilotti has played on albums from Björk’s Vulnicura Live and Joan Osborne’s Love and Hate, to David Lang’s anatomy theater. Lanzilotti also premiered and recorded Dai Fujikura’s Viola Concerto Wayfinder as a soloist with the Nagoya Philharmonic, Keita Matsui, conductor. in manus tuas, Lanzilotti’s solo viola album debut, was featured in The Boston Globe’s Top 10 classical albums of 2019 and Bandcamp’s Best Contemporary Classical Albums of 2019.
As an experimental sound artist, Lanzilotti’s projects include performing with object instruments created by Isamu Noguchi, Toshiko Takaezu, Harry Bertoia, Adam Morford and Maika Garnica; and with Gahlord Dewald as a member of The Yes &. Lanzilotti was part of the inaugural cohort of Wehiwehi, a residency-based gathering of Native Hawaiian artists working at the intersection of indigeneity & contemporary performance supported by the Doris Duke Foundation, and hosted at Shangri La Museum in Honolulu, Hawai’i. Additionally, Lanzilotti is part of the network of musicians and artists in the Wandelweiser collective.
With Karen Plimmer performing on Brailler, Harp and Electronics
Thursday Sept 10, 8pm @ Audio Foundation
Presales $16.50 +BF from Undertheradar
Door sales $25
Members free
