Ursula Kwong-Brown

Described as “atmospheric and accomplished” by The New York Times, her work has been performed in New York City at Carnegie Hall, the Miller Theatre, and le Poisson Rouge, at the Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in London, and by festivals and ensembles across the country and around the world. In collaboration with her partner Danny Erdberg, a Broadway sound designer, she has begun composing for film, theater and multimedia. Most recently she collaborated on a video with the Japanese visual artist Akiko Nakayama and the San Francisco-based ensemble Ninth Planet Music, of which she was a founding member.

With mentorship from Dr. Darcy Kelley and support from the Sloan Foundation and Columbia University’s Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience Program, Ursula has been exploring the intersection of neural feedback and electronic music. She has worked with the electromyography (EMG) wristband developed by CTRL-Labs, as well as an electroencephalography (EEG) headband developed by Muse/ InteraXon, mapping the output of these devices to music generation using a custom-built Max/MSP interface that she developed using tools from UC Berkeley’s Center for New Music and Audio Technologies.

Ursula received her B.A. in Music and Biology from Columbia University in 2010, and her Ph.D. in Music Composition and New Media from UC Berkeley in 2018.

Ursula Kwong-Brown is an LA-based composer and arts technologist who grew up in New York City and started writing music at the age of eight.