Dr. Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti
Lecturer in Music, Composition & Viola
Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti is a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) musician dedicated to the arts of our time. A “leading composer-performer” (The New York Times), Lanzilotti is the recipient of a 2020 Native Launchpad Artist Award and 2021 McKnight Visiting Composer Residency. Her “conceptually potent” compositions often deal with unique instrument-objects, such as The Noguchi Museum commissions involving sound sculptures. “Lanzilotti’s score brings us together across the world in remembrance, through the commitment of shared sonic gestures.” (Cities & Health) Lanzilotti’s current commissions include a new work for the [Switch~ Ensemble], the development and performance of which is supported by a project grant from the MAP Fund, a string quartet for Argus Quartet for which she is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Awardee, and a new work for the GRAMMY-winning ensemble Roomful of Teeth supported in part by the National Science Foundation.
As a recording artist, Lanzilotti has played on albums from Björk’s Vulnicura Live and Joan Osborne’s Love and Hate, to Dai Fujikura’s Chance Monsoon and David Lang’s anatomy theater. Lanzilotti’s upcoming solo performance projects include Wayfinder—a new viola concerto by Dai Fujikura inspired by Polynesian wayfinding. in manus tuas—Lanzilotti’s solo viola album debut—was featured in Steve Smith’s Log Journal Playlist (Live life out Loud), Bandcamp’s Best Contemporary Classical Albums of 2019, and The Boston Globe’s Top 10 classical albums of 2019, and was called “an entrancing new album” by The New Yorker’s Alex Ross.
To reach new audiences and share contemporary music and art, Lanzilotti has had a multifaceted career. She has published articles in Music & Literature and Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, and written program notes for the London Symphony Orchestra. Lanzilotti’s dissertation is an analysis of Andrew Norman’s The Companion Guide to Rome showing the influence of architecture and visual art on the work. As an extension of the research, she created Shaken Not Stuttered, a free online resource demonstrating extended techniques for strings. Lanzilotti has also worked as a producer and curator, most recently as the Curator of Music at EMPAC. As an educator, Lanzilotti has been on the faculty at New York University, University of Northern Colorado (where she was also the director of the contemporary music ensemble), Casalmaggiore International Music Festival, and Point CounterPoint Music Festival. Lanzilotti was recently appointed Director of Community Engagement for Hawaiʻi Contemporary, connecting Hawaiʻi and the Pacific through contemporary art.
Dr. Lanzilotti studied at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Yale School of Music, and Manhattan School of Music. In addition, Lanzilotti was an orchestral fellow in the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the New World Symphony. She participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy under Pierre Boulez, and was the original violist in the Lucerne Festival Alumni Ensemble. Her mentors include Hiroko Primrose, Peter Slowik, Jesse Levine, Martin Bresnick, Wilfried Strehle, Karen Ritscher, and Reiko Füting.