10/07/2026
Our October Composer of the Month is Tonia Ko. View all her available works on our website: www.tfront.com
Composer Tonia Ko has collaborated with leading musicians across a variety of media—from acoustic concert pieces to improvisatory works with electronics. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, 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.
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 “Breath, Contained”, an ongoing project using bubble wrap. 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 and is currently Associate Professor in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London.
