Christine Southworth

Christine Southworth (b. Boston, Massachusetts, 2 January 1978) is an American composer of postminimal music and works with combinations of Western ensembles, electronics, and world music ensembles including Balinese gamelan and bagpipes. She performs Balinese gamelan and gender wayang with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Gamelan Galak Tika, as well as Galician Gaita and Great Highland Bagpipes. She co-founded Ensemble Robot, a cooperative of engineers, artists and musicians working together to invent robotic musical instruments. She was also the general manager of Gamelan Galak Tika from 2004 through 2013. Her own music incorporates her work with Balinese gamelan and with technology and electronics, as well as reaching beyond these influences with an expanded palette of contemporary classical, jazz and rock, and world music from Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. Southworth has released four albums on Airplane Ears Music: Zap! Music for Van de Graaff Generator, Tesla Coils, Instruments and Voices (2008), Gamelan Galak Tika: Bronze Age Space Age (2009), Christine Southworth: String Quartets (2013). and In My Mind and In My Car (2013). Southworth's compositions have been performed throughout the U.S., Europe, and Indonesia by ensembles including Kronos Quartet, Gamelan Galak Tika, Calder Quartet, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Gamelan Semara Ratih, California EAR Unit, Andrew W.K., and Ensemble Robot. She has received awards from the American Music Center, LEF Foundation, American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), the MIT Eloranta Fellowship, and fellowships from Bang on a Can (2009), UCross Foundation (2012), and The Hermitage Artist Retreat (2014).