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Photo: Kirsty Beilharz

Dr Kirsty Beilharz is an internationally recognised composer and interactive media artist. Her ensemble, orchestral and electronic compositions have been performed by the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (Montreal, Canada), Ensemble Recherche (Freiburg, Germany), by the Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmanian and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Seymour Group and AustraLYSIS. She has won International prizes and commissions, her work has been recognised by the Gaudeamus World Music Days Amsterdam, Paris Composers' Rostrum (Australian representative in 1999), Hannover Biennale, and the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne Forum in Montreal.

Beilharz was selected for the IRCAM Electronic Music Course, was awarded the Matsumae International Science Research Fellowship (AI Lab Tokyo), the Churchill Fellowship, and an Asialink Arts Residency. She was a finalist in Young Australian of the Year and has received the Sir Charles Mackerras Prize of the British Council, the Jean Bogan Prize for Piano Composition. She has also received in the World Bass Clarinet Convention and the Angoulême Colloque International du Basson composition prizes.

Kirsty Beilharz is Professor and Program Head of Integrative Studies at Excelsia College; formerly worked in therapeutic music at St. Vincent's Hospital Network and the Univeristy of Notre Dame, and HammondCare; and was Professor of Music, Sound and Interaction Design at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) Australia in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building (2008-2014). She was the Digital Media program director at the University of Sydney Design Lab (2001-2008).

Her research integrates music and generative processes applied to sound; real-time audiovisual interaction and data sonification; music in health care - especially end of life and dementia care, and symbolism in the music of Olivier Messiaen through the phenomenological lens of Jean-Luc Marion. Her interaction design research on gesture and motion tracking to produce musical hyper-instruments, augmented acoustic capabilities, and audiovisual installations has been funded by Australian Research Council.

Kirsty's interactive electronic media installations have been exhibited at the Paris Cité International des Arts, Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney Powerhouse Museum, in the U.K., Taiwan and at Sydney Esquisse Art Festival, and a spatial sound installation in Bondi Sculpture by the Sea at Tamarama Beach.

Kirsty plays violin, viola, shakuhachi and flute. She is the author of Music Remembers Me: Connection and Wellbeing in Dementia (HammondCare Media, 2017).

Kirsty Beilharz — current to January 2021