Bio:
Described as “a force multiplier with more talents than time” (PATRON Magazine), whose music is “alternately celestial and dark” (John Schaefer, WNYC New Sounds), Anuj Bhutani is a quickly emerging composer, performer, vocalist, and producer whose music often features visceral grooves; ethereal, meditative spaces; a combination of acoustic instruments and electronics, narrative depth, and genre-fluidity. As a first-generation Indian-American, Bhutani’s work is focused on liminal spaces, and as such is often highly interdisciplinary, engaging with theater, dance, and film while drawing on his musical background in classical, emo/screamo, ambient, singer/songwriter, and electronic music, resulting in wholly unique, genre- and culturally-fluid pieces that that firmly situate the listener between multiple musical worlds at once.
His work has been presented by Beth Morrison Projects and LA Performance Practice, and at venues including National Sawdust, So Laboratories, the Banff Centre, Tuesdays @ Monk Space, Unwound Sound, the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, Oracle Egg, USC’s Visions + Voices series, and more.
He’s won Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Grant, an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, 1st prize in Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble’s Emerging Composer Competition, Verdigris Ensemble’s ION Composer Competition, Warren County Summer Music School’s Promising Young Composer Competition, Blank House Media’s Recording Competition, Nief-Norf International Call for Scores, 3rd prize in the American Prize in Choral Composition and The Choral Project's Composition Competition, and was a Finalist for the Bowdoin College Marion Brown Prize, Third Coast Percussion’s Creative Currents, and in the VOCES8 and Red Note Composition Competitions. He’s been selected for American Composer’s Orchestra’s Earshot, NewAm Composer’s Lab, Banff Centre’s Evolution: Classical, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival’s New Music Workshop at Yale School of Music, Albany Symphony’s Orchestrating for the 21st Century Workshop, RED NOTE Festival Composition Workshop, the Next Festival of Emerging Artists, residencies at Loghaven, Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Atlantic Center for the Arts (#188 with Judd Greenstein, #191 with Missy Mazzoli), Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the IRCAM Forum, ISCM World Music Days, multiple SCI conferences, SEAMUS conference, Impulse New Music Festival, Nick Photinos’ “1:2:1” program, the Hear Now Festival, and New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival.
His work has been commissioned or performed by Ashley Bathgate, USC Thornton Symphony, Khemia Ensemble, 240 Northern, Raleigh Civic Symphony, Metropolis Ensemble, Extended Music Collective, Verdant Vibes, Allen Philharmonic, Andrew Tholl of Wild Up, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Lauren Cauley Kalal of Switch~ ensemble, Inversion Ensemble, Daisy Press, the William Paterson University Percussion Ensemble, and more.
He earned his master’s degree at University of Southern California where he was awarded Outstanding Graduate in Composition and his bachelor’s degree at University of North Texas. His previous teachers have included Andrew Norman, Ted Hearne, Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother), Joseph Klein, Andrew May, Sungji Hong, Drew Schnurr, and UNT Composer-in-Residence Bruce Broughton. He also holds a BA in Psychology from UT Austin.