Works performed by Earplay:

Plush Earth in Four Pieces

The music of Tonia Ko has been lauded by The New York Times for its "captivating" details and "vivid orchestral palette." Her interests in texture and physical movement play into a larger theme of interdependency between visual art and music.

For the 2016-2017 season, Tonia was guest composer at Clarion Concerts in Columbia County and The Process Series at UNC Chapel Hill. She was also commissioned by clarinetist Chen Halevi for the CEME Festival in Tel Aviv and Young Concert Artists, writing for oboist Olivier Stankiewicz. Future projects include collaborations with The Rhythm Method string quartet and University of Kansas Wind Ensemble.

Tonia’s music has been performed by ensembles such as Minnesota Orchestra, Volti, New York Youth Symphony, Flux Quartet, orkest de ereprijs, Eastman Wind Ensemble, New Morse Code, and Sō Percussion. She has been featured at nief-norf Summer Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Center, Shanghai New Music Week, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Tonia has received awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, BMI, Composers Now, International Alliance for Women in Music, as well as residencies at Copland House, Djerassi, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, and Atlantic Center for the Arts. She is currently represented by Young Concert Artists, Inc. as 2015-2017 Composer-in-Residence.

Her own explorations as an artist have sparked interdisciplinary connections — most prominently Breath, Contained, an ongoing project using bubble wrap as a canvas for both art and sound. Tonia is currently a doctoral candidate at Cornell University where she studied with Steven Stucky and Kevin Ernste. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Honolulu, she received previous degrees from Indiana University and the Eastman School of Music.

Her website is toniako.com.