Ken Ueno

Ken Ueno is a composer, performer, sound artist, and scholar. Leading performers and ensembles around the world have championed Ueno’s music. His piece for the Hilliard Ensemble, Shiroi Ishi, was featured in their repertoire for over ten years. Another work, Pharmakon, was performed dozens of times nationally by Eighth Blackbird during their 2001-2003 seasons. 

A portrait concert of Ken’s was featured on MaerzMusik in Berlin in 2011. As a vocalist, Ueno is known for inventing extended techniques and has performed as a soloist in his vocal concerto with orchestras in Boston, New York, Warsaw, Vilnius, Bangkok, Sacramento, Stony Brook, Pittsburgh, North Carolina, and Berkeley. As a sound artist, his installations have been commissioned and exhibited by museums and galleries in Beijing, Guangzhou, Taipei, Mexico City, Art Basel, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong. 

One of his largest projects, Daedalus Drones, an installation (a fence-labyrinth housing a swarm of flying drones choreographed for performance with instrumentalists) was installed at the Asia Society of Hong Kong and featured on the New Vision Arts Festival in 2021.

Ueno currently serves as a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His writings have been published by the Oxford Handbook, the New York Times, Palgrave Macmillan, and Wiley & Sons. His bio appears in The Grove Dictionary of American Music. www.kenueno.com