The Northwestern University Bienen School of Music has appointed Kelley Sheehan as assistant professor of composition and music technology, effective September 1, 2025.
“We are thrilled for Kelley Sheehan to join the Bienen School community and bring her unique skills to our composition and music technology program,” said Alex Mincek, associate professor and director of the school’s Institute for New Music.
“Kelley is a multifaceted musician with a powerful compositional voice, encompassing a broad range of influences, materials and practices. She is uniquely adept at creating novel interfaces between electronic and acoustic forces in her compositions. She is also an avid improviser, both on self-made DIY electronic instruments, and on the AI-electric guitar hybrid she has developed," Mincek said.
Sheehan is a composer and electronic musician moving between electroacoustic, multimedia, and performance art works. Her work has been described as “full of discovery, collaboration, and unpredictability” (Iannotta, Kyriakides, & Stäbler) and “shatteringly visceral” (VAN Magazine, Ty Bouque).
In any medium, her work constructs environments meant to merge electronic and acoustic forces into one composite organism, dependent on this merging to become more than just an extension of itself. Her work focuses on sculpting noise, shifting materiality, housing structures, and machinery.
Her works have been presented by prestigious institutions and festivals such as Gaudeamus Muziekweek, impuls International Contemporary Music Festival, Darmstadt, Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik, Time:Spans, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik festival, and Klang!, among others.
She has collaborated with leading ensembles and performers, including Nadar Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Line Upon Line, Yarn/Wire, Ensemble Mosaik, Ensemble MusikFabrik, ~Nois, Klangforum Wien, collective lovemusic, and Riot Ensemble. She has developed ongoing close collaborations with Ty Bouque, Chiara Percivati, and Jenn Torrence
Her work has been recognized with numerous awards and grants, including the 2025 impuls Composition Prize, the 2022 Hildegard Commission, the 2019 Gaudeamus Award, A Barlow Endowment Commission, First Prize in the 2020 SEAMUS/ASCAP Composition Competition, and the 2021 George Arthur Knight Prize (Harvard University).
Beyond composition, she is an active performer, integrating custom-built electronics, extended instrumental techniques including machine learning, and live processing into her practice. Having performed at such venues as the Banff Center for the Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Goethe Institute of Boston and the impuls International Contemporary Music Festival.
She holds a PhD in music composition from Harvard University, where she studied with Chaya Czernowin and Hans Tutschku. Sheehan is currently a postdoctoral fellow in music technology at Smith College.
Photo credit: Graham Carlson