Recipient of a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, American composer Tonia Ko’s music has been praised by The New York Times for its “captivating” details and “vivid orchestral palette.”

Ms. Ko’s works have been performed by ensembles including the Minnesota Orchestra, New York Youth Symphony, Los Angeles-based collective Wild Up, Spektral Quartet, percussion/cello duo New Morse Code, and the Da Capo Chamber Players. Internationally, her compositions have been featured at the Royaumont Académie Voix Nouvelles, Shanghai Conservatory New Music Week, and Thailand International Composition Festival.

As the 2015-2017 Young Concert Artists Composer-in-Residence, Ms. Ko received commissions to write works for the debuts of pianist Daniel Lebhardt and oboist Olivier Stankiewicz, which premiered in the YCA Series in New York at Merkin Concert Hall and in Washington, D.C at the Kennedy Center, to critical acclaim.

Ms. Ko has received grants and awards from the Harvard University’s Fromm Music Foundation, Chamber Music America, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI).

Tonia Ko was born in Hong Kong and raised in Honolulu. 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, where she served as Associate Instructor of Music Theory and was awarded the Georgina Joshi Commission Prize. She holds a D.M.A. from Cornell University, studying with Steven Stucky and Kevin Ernste. She served as Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Chicago’s Center for Contemporary Composition, was appointed Honorary Research Fellow at City University of London for the 2019-2020 academic year, and is Lecturer in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London.

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YCA represents composer Tonia Ko for worldwide engagements. Please contact us for more information.