bio

Nyokabi Kariũki (she/her) is a Kenyan composer and sound artist. Her sonic imagination is ever-evolving, spanning across various genres from classical contemporary to experimental electronic music, explorations in sound art, pop, film, (East) African musical traditions and more. She performs with the piano, voice, electronics, and on several instruments from the African continent, particularly on kalimbas, the mbira, and djembe. Nyokabi’s work has been described as “deft” (The Quietus) and “transcendent” (The Guardian), with Bandcamp highlighting seeing her as “becoming a crucial voice in contemporary composition and experimental music.” She seeks to create meaningful and challenging art, illuminated by a commitment to the preservation and reflection on African thought, language and stories.

Released in February 2022, Nyokabi’s debut EP, ‘peace places: kenyan memories’ (SA Recordings) was marked as one of Bandcamp’s Best Albums of Winter 2022 and The Guardian’s Contemporary Album of the Month, with additional praise from Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, The New York Times, and more. In September 2022, Nyokabi debuted a reimagining of the EP at the 2022 Gaudeamus Festival, performing alongside the acclaimed Cello Octet Amsterdam, percussionist and electronic musician Matt Evans, and guest vocalist, Alev Lenz. Nyokabi’s other concert works continue to be performed by award-winning ensembles, including Third Coast Percussion, Brooklyn Youth Chorus Bass Ensemble, and Chromic, and she has received commissions from BBC Radio 3, Arcis Saxophon Quartett, and more. Her sound art pieces have also been heard at audio festivals, including the Hearsay International Audio Festival (Ireland), where she received the 2021 Hearsay ‘Art’ Award; Banguoja Audio Festival (Lithuania), and the LUCIA Festival (Italy). Nyokabi has enjoyed and continues to embrace vibrant collaborations with performers, choreographers, filmmakers, visual artists, as well as other experiential producers.

Nyokabi holds a BM in Music Composition and a minor in Creative Writing from New York University, where she studied composition with Dr. Jerica Oblak, songwriting with David Wolfert, among others. She also studied composition and orchestration at École Normale de Musique de Paris under 1966 Prix de Rome Winner Michel Merlet, and underwent an intensive course on Sound Spatialisation & Computer-Aided Composition at IRCAM in Paris, France. She has also been a part of various composition workshops, including the inaugural NEO Voice Festival in Los Angeles, California, and Heartland Marimba’s first Online Composition Festival. In addition to freelance composition, Nyokabi works for Bang on a Can’s Found Sound Nation (New York), a creative agency that inquires how creative collaboration in music can address local and collective social issues. She has lent a hand in producing The OneBeat Podcast, as well as in many of their other initiatives.

Nyokabi continues to shape-shift and explore sound and its impact in different ways, but what remains constant is a yearning and a curiosity to explore sound’s important role in the preservation and archiving of African epistemologies; using sound as a tool to not only re-discover the stories of her culture, but also to contribute to the highlighting of its significance.