“Kari Watson’s music has bite as well as poetry. The composer speaks their own language between surreal-synthetic sound worlds and radio-play-like collage.”

– Excerpt from the jury statement for the Kranichstein Music Prize 2023.

About Me:

Named by the Chicago Tribune as “internationally coveted local talent,” Kari Watson (they/them) is a composer, performer, and intermedia artist whose work explores the intersections of contemporary concert music, electroacoustic composition, live performance, and interactive installation. Their cross-disciplinary, deeply collaborative practice often emerges through workshop-driven processes that prioritize collective exploration and exchange. As a performer on analog and modular synthesizers, Watson engages customizable spatialization software built in MaxMSP with spatial speaker arrays, using technology to further explore tactility, drama, and immersion in sonic environments.

Watson has collaborated with a wide range of performers and ensembles in the United States and abroad, including Ensemble intercontemporain, clarinetist Heather Roche, percussionist Jennifer Torrence, violinists Maya Bennardo and Sarah Saviet, Yarn/Wire, Collective Lovemusic, cellist Eduard Teregulov, Ensemble Dal Niente, TAK Ensemble, the MIVOS Quartet, Line Upon Line, the Chicago Philharmonic, the Civic Orchestra, Quatuor Diotima, Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble, and Sandbox Percussion, among others.

Their work has been presented at leading international festivals and institutions including the Darmstädter Ferienkurse and Donaueschinger Musiktage in Germany, the MINU Festival for Expanded Music in Denmark, Les Écoles d’Art Américaines de Fontainebleau in France, the Ravinia Festival’s Breaking Barriers Festival with Marin Alsop, and the Composers Now Dialogues Series with Tania León. In Chicago, their work has appeared at Frequency Festival, the Ear Taxi Festival, the New Music Gathering, and at Yarn/Wire’s Currents Series at Roulette in New York City, as well as on performance series including LAMPO, the CLEAT Series and Pleiades Series at Elastic Arts, Experimental Sound Studio’s Florasonic and Patchbent Series, and International Anthem’s 11x11 Series with Katinka Kleijn.

Photo and wearables by Av Grannan featured in performance of *Fuse* on the Lampo Series in April, 2026.

Described by Karl Ludwig in a WDR Radio Profile as “one of the most interesting voices at the intersection of composition, performance and sound art,” Watson has received numerous awards and distinctions for their work. They were recently featured as Musical America’s New Artist of the Month (February 2025), and received the 2023 Kranichstein Music Prize for Composition from the Darmstädter Ferienkurse and a 2022 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Their work has also been recognized and supported by Broadcast Music, Inc., the Musicians Club of Women, and New Music USA, while collaborative projects have received support from Arts Council England, SWR Kultur, DCASE in partnership with the Chicago Cultural Center, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Watson maintains an active practice as a performer and recording artist. They perform on modular synthesizers both as a soloist and in duo with cellist Katinka Kleijn; the pair released their debut album, VISTAS, on Elektramusic in June 2025. Watson’s debut solo album, enclosures, was released by Sawyer Editions in January 2025 and was subsequently reviewed in the June 2025 issue of Tempo (Cambridge University Press), named among the Best Contemporary Classical Music on Bandcamp in January 2025 by Peter Margasak for Bandcamp Daily, and selected by Thurston Moore as one of his top records of 2025. Writing about Watson’s music has appeared in Seismograf (DK), The Wire (UK), Tempo (UK), The Washington Post, i care if you listen, the Chicago Classical Review, the Chicago Reader, the Chicago Tribune, and Ruch Muzyczny (PL).

Kari Watson and Kelley Sheehan for the Chicago Tribune by Eileen T. Meslar, February 2026

Upcoming projects include a commission from the 2026 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival for UK-based mezzo-soprano Rosie Middleton and a cello duo for Laurence Gaudreau and Audréanne Filion, scheduled to premiere in September 2027. Watson is also continuing collaborations with Katinka Kleijn, sonic artist Lou Mallozzi, music writer Gasira Timir, and videographer Luana Borges. Upcoming duo performances with Kleijn include Chicago’s second Sound and Gravity Festival in September 2026 and the 2027 Montreal New Music Week with Montreal-based group SuperMusique.

Watson holds a BM from Oberlin Conservatory in Composition, with a minor in TIMARA (technology in music and related arts) and is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago on a full fellowship from the Division of the Humanities. They are currently a guest lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania.