Overview
Annie Lewandowski is a composer and performer who works in song and improvisation. As an improviser on piano, accordion, and electronics, she has performed and recorded with musicians including Fred Frith, the London Improvisers Orchestra, Caroline Kraabel, Theresa Wong, Tim Feeney, CAGE, Sarah Hennies, Spinneret.s, and Doublends Vert. As a singer, guitarist, and keyboardist, she has recorded with bands and ensembles including Emma Zunz, Xiu Xiu, The Curtains, Former Ghosts, and Yarn/Wire. Her own band Powerdove has released ten recordings, including Machination (Murailles Music, 2021) and Bitter Banquet (fo'c'sle records, 2018).
In 2017, Lewandowski began studying humpback whale song with pioneering bioacoustician Katy Payne. Her 2018 composition Cetus: Life After Life, for humpback whale song and chimes, traces the evolution of Hawaiian humpback whale song from 1977-1981. She is currently working on the creative project Siren - Listening to Another Species on Earth with artist and coder Kyle McDonald exploring the meeting of multiple intelligences - human, humpback whale, and artificial. Siren will be presented on Martha's Vineyard, at the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, in New York City, and at MASS MoCA in 2021-2022.
Lewandowski has performed at festivals and venues across the United States and Europe, including the Casa da Música (Porto, Portugal), the Hippodrome (London), Musica Nelle Valli (San Martino Spino, Italy), the Great American Music Hall (San Francisco), the Frieze Arts Fair (London), Avalon (Los Angeles), and REDCAT (Los Angeles). She is a 2014 Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow, and has been awarded grants from the Cornell Council for the Arts and the Atkinson Center for Sustainability. In 2019, she contributed to the creation of Pattern Radio, Google Creative Lab's webtool for teaching AI to recognize patterns in humpback whale song.
Lewandowski received her Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from the College of St. Catherine, and her Master of Fine Arts in Music Performance and Literature with a Specialization in Improvisation from Mills College. At Mills, she was awarded the Flora Boyd Piano Performance prize for her work on extended techniques for the piano. At Cornell, she is a Faculty Fellow with the Atkinson Center for Sustainability.
In the news
- New grants support student involvement in community projects
- Cornell Atkinson awards $1.6M in seed grants
- Students’ island clean-up trip inspires multimedia projects
- Project celebrates the beauty of humpback whale songs
- Festival takes listeners on musical pilgrimage around Arts Quad
- ‘Mini’ dance showcase meets challenges with virtual performance
- Collaboration showcases creativity of whale songs
- ‘The Odyssey in Ithaca’ captivates audience during daylong community reading
- Locally Grown Dance explores relationships through dance, live music and media
- CCA Biennial launches with art projects across campus
- 2018 Biennial on 'Duration' to feature major artists
- Locally Grown Dance performances showcase improvisation, discipline
- Cornell Council for the Arts supports 35 new projects
- 'Bitter Banquet' a feast for the senses
