Leilehua Lanzilotti Composer
Leilehua Lanzilotti (b. 1983) is a Kanaka Maoli composer, multimedia artist, curator, scholar, and educator. A “leading composer-performer” (The New York Times), Lanzilotti’s work is characterized by expansive explorations of timbre. Lanzilotti’s practice explores radical indigenous contemporaneity, integrating community engagement into the heart of projects. By world-building through multimedia installation works and nontraditional concert experiences/musical interventions, Lanzilotti’s works activate imagination around new paths forward in language sovereignty, water sovereignty, land stewardship, and respect. Uplifting others by crafting projects that support both local communities and economy, the work inspires hope to continue.
Lanzilotti was honored to be a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize 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.”
Previous honors include: 2023 MacGeorge Fellowship at the University of Melbourne, 2021 McKnight Visiting Composer with the American Composers Forum, Empowering ʻŌiwi Leadership Award (E OLA), among other accolades. As a 2023 SHIFT – Transformative Change and Indigenous Arts Awardee, Lanzilotti is partnering with Te Ao Mana to provide free hula, language, and cultural workshops, creating space to come together as a community in the week leading up to their new opera project, ³¢¾±±ô¾±Ê»³Ü. These workshops are not just to create space to learn, but more to create space to come together through language and culture, and to celebrate the diaspora.