BIOGRAPHY
Founded in 2017, composer collective Kinds of Kings is a collective of multifaceted composers committed to building a positive and supportive community around the creation and experience of new music. The collective is focused on amplifying and advocating for the voices of historically-marginalized people and expanding access for audiences and composers.
For the 2019-2020 season, Kinds of Kings was an Artist-in-Residence at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, New York. Described as, “distinguished young creators who work in diverse styles,” (The New Yorker) the collective’s 2019-2020 concert series, Equilibrium and Disturbance, featured Rubiks Collective (Melbourne, Australia), ~Nois saxophone quartet (Chicago), Isabelle O’Connell (New York), Nouveau Classical Project (New York), and Real Loud (New York). Kinds of Kings has previously had portrait concerts with New York-based chamber groups Metropolis Ensemble and Desdemona Ensemble, the ZAFA Collective in Chicago, and the St Louis Symphony as part of the orchestra’s Pulitzer Series. In March 2022 the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Grammy-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird premiered a new concerto by the collective, Nine Mothers.
Kinds of Kings is Gemma Peacocke (New Zealand/Brooklyn, NY), Shelley Washington (United States/Brooklyn, NY), and Maria Kaoutzani (Cyprus/Chicago, IL).
A NOTE ON
GENDER, ETHNICITY, & RACE
We avoid using gender, ethnicity, race, or other identities in any marketing. Rather than identifying us as 'female composers,' we ask just to be called 'composers'.
It's part of our strategy of normalising the presence of women, BIPOC, LGBTQI, non-binary people, and gender nonconforming people in composition and other music jobs. (We often talk about our own experiences in relation to sex, gender, ethnicity, and race, but we prefer that these identities are not used to promote our work.)
COMPOSER BIOS
Gemma Peacocke is a New Zealand-born, Brooklyn-based composer. She has a particular interest in cross-art form and multimedia projects. Her first album, Waves & Lines, which sets poems by Afghan women, was released on New Amsterdam in March 2019. Gemma is co-founder of the Kinds of Kings composer collective which is focssed on amplifying and advocating for under-heard voices. Gemma’s music has been performed and commissioned by the Rochester Philharmonic, PUBLIQuartet, Bang on a Can, cellist Nick Photinos, Third Coast Percussion, Rubiks Collective, ~Nois saxophone quartet, the Furies, and Alarm Will Sound.
Maria Kaoutzani is a composer from Limassol, Cyprus, currently based in Chicago, IL, where she is a PhD candidate and a Lindsay Graduate Fellow in Music Composition at the University of Chicago. Her works have been performed in Europe, the US, Canada and Latin America, by ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, Spektral Quartet, Longleash Trio and Imani Winds, and at festivals such as New Music On The Point, Valencia International Performance Academy, International Symposium for New Music, among others.
Shelley Washington writes music to fulfil one calling: to move. With an eclectic palette, Washington tells stories focusing on exploring emotions and intentions by finding their root cause. Using driving, rhythmic riffs paired with indelible melodies, she creates a sound dialogue for the public and personal discourse. She performs regularly as a vocalist and saxophonist, primarily on baritone saxophone, and has performed and recorded throughout the Midwest and East Coast- anything from Baroque to Screamo.
SOCIAL MEDIA
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Twitter: twitter.com/kindsofkings
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