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Kirsten Milenko (b.1993) is a Paris-based Australian composer/conductor. Milenko received the 2021 Roche Young Commission, awarded by Artistic Director of Lucerne Festival Wolfgang Rihm, and is a laureate of Fondation Royaumont.

In 2020, her debut opera/dance-theatre work Dalloway premiered at Pulsar Festival (Denmark), shortly after she was shortlisted to create a new opera with the Mannheim National Theatre (Germany) with Bea Redweik (librettist) and Johan Klint Sandberg (director).

She studied composition at the Royal Danish Academy of Music (MMus class of 2020) with Niels Rosing-Schow, Simon Løffler, and Jeppe Just Christensen, and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (BMus class of 2018) with Liza Lim, Natasha Anderson, Ursula Caporali and Rosalind Page. She currently studies conducting (CAS) at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana with Arturo Tamayo. Prior to her tertiary education as a musician, she studied International Relations and Piano at the University of New South Wales with additional studies in French and English Literature.

She has attended academies and masterclasses with composers such as: Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Francesco Filidei, Dmitri Kourliandski, Catherine Milliken, Mark Andre, Zygmunt Krauze, Martin Bresnick - and conductors: Johannes Wildner, Jessica Cottis, Mark Shapiro.

Premieres of her work have been given by ensembles and orchestras such as: Danish National Vocal Ensemble, Ensemble MusikFabrik, Bang on a Can, Esbjerg Ensemble, Ensemblage, Scandinavian Guitar Duo, Trio Ismena, E-Mex Ensemble, Gildas Quartet, Judgement of Paris Quartet, Adelaide Wind Orchestra, Sydney Conservatorium of Music Wind Symphony - with upcoming premieres by Ensemble intercontemporain, the Ulysses Ensemble and Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen scheduled for 2021. She has performed her work as a pianist at venues such as: Staatsoper Hamburg - Opera Stabile, Associació Cultural Sa Taronja, and as a conductor at Verbrugghen Hall.

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

Kirsten Milenko — current to March 2021