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Photo: Linda Warlond

Kirsten Milenko (b. 1993) is an Australian composer and conductor based in Copenhagen, Denmark. She works with vocal, instrumental and electronic media to compose music that echoes environmental phenomena and expressions of the human form. This has led to a consistent output of music across the performance arts in both acoustic and electroacoustic settings. Working closely with movement, her music embodies a constant synergy between sound and motion to capture perceptions of space.

In August 2017, she moved to Denmark to study as a visiting student at the Royal Danish Academy of Music where she since continued her studies with Niels Rosing-Schow and Simon Løffler, and will graduate from the Master's program in June 2020. During her Bachelor's degree, she was awarded the 2016 Ignaz Friedman Memorial Prize by the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where she studied under Liza Lim, Natasha Anderson and Rosalind Page.

Milenko has received the Roche Young Commission 2021, awarded by Wolfgang Rihm, Artistic Director of Lucerne Festival. In March 2020, her debut opera/dance-theatre work 'Dalloway' premiered at Pulsar Festival in Copenhagen; collaborating with dancer Jessica Lyall as Mrs Dalloway's Shadow. She has recently been selected as a finalist for the composition of a new chamber opera at the Mannheim National Theatre, Germany.

Premieres of Milenko's work have been given by internationally acclaimed ensembles and orchestras including: Danish National Vocal Ensemble, Bang on a Can, Esbjerg Ensemble, Ensemblage, E-Mex Ensemble, Scandinavian Guitar Duo, Judgement of Paris Quartet, Adelaide Wind Orchestra, Sydney Conservatorium of Music Wind Symphony, Modest Orchestra. She has performed her own work as a pianist at venues such as: Staatsoper Hamburg - Opera Stabile, Associació Cultural Sa Taronja; and conductor at Verbrugghen Hall and the Royal Danish Academy of Music.

In addition to her tertiary studies, she has attended composition and conducting masterclasses such as: Dartington International Summer School Advanced Composition with Sir Harrison Birtwistle (UK 2019), International Masterclass for Orchestral Conductors with Professor Johannes Wildner and the Berlin Sinfonietta (Germany 2019), Hatched Academy, Ensemble Offspring (Australia 2018), Dartington International Summer School (UK 2018), NORD+MIX Workshop (Lithuania 2018), Conductor's Workshop with Jessica Cottis and the Royal Philharmonic Society (UK 2017), Synthetis International Summer School for Composition (Poland 2016).

Awards: Ignaz Friedman Memorial Prize (2016), John Amis Award, Dartington International Summer School (2018), Ian Donald Wilson Memorial Scholarship (2020).

Kirsten Milenko — current to April 2020