Overview
Annie Lewandowski is a composer and performer who works in song and improvisation. As an improviser on piano, accordion, and electronics, she has performed and recorded with musicians including Fred Frith, the London Improvisers Orchestra, Caroline Kraabel, Theresa Wong, Tim Feeney, CAGE, Sarah Hennies, Spinneret.s, and Doublends Vert. As a singer, guitarist, and keyboardist, she has recorded with bands and ensembles including Emma Zunz, Xiu Xiu, The Curtains, Former Ghosts, and Yarn/Wire. Her own band Powerdove has released ten recordings, including Machination (Murailles Music, 2021) and Bitter Banquet (fo'c'sle records, 2018).
In 2017, Lewandowski began studying humpback whale song with pioneering bioacoustician Katy Payne. Her 2018 composition Cetus: Life After Life, for humpback whale song and chimes, traces the evolution of Hawaiian humpback whale song from 1977-1981. Her project Siren - Listening to Another Species on Earth, with artist and coder Kyle McDonald, explores the meeting of multiple intelligences - human, humpback whale, and artificial. Siren has been presented on Martha's Vineyard, at the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, the Invisible Dog Arts Center in Brooklyn, and at MASS MoCA. Lewandowski is currently working with Katy Payne, Chris Gabriele, Michelle Fournet, Alia Payne, the Hawaii Marine Mammal Consortium, and Kyle McDonald on a scientific and creative project about humpback whale song and the Pacific Marine Heatwave.
Since 2023, Lewandowski has been leading a spring break course in marine conservation and creative collaboration in partnership with the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts (MUS 1213).
Lewandowski has performed at festivals and venues across the United States and Europe, including the Casa da Música (Porto, Portugal), the Hippodrome (London), Musica Nelle Valli (San Martino Spino, Italy), the Great American Music Hall (San Francisco), the Frieze Arts Fair (London), Avalon (Los Angeles), and REDCAT (Los Angeles). She is a 2014 Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow, and has been awarded grants from the Cornell Council for the Arts and the Atkinson Center for Sustainability. In 2019, she contributed to the creation of Pattern Radio, Google Creative Lab's webtool for teaching AI to recognize patterns in humpback whale song.
Lewandowski received her Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from the College of St. Catherine, and her Master of Fine Arts in Music Performance and Literature with a Specialization in Improvisation from Mills College. At Mills, she was awarded the Flora Boyd Piano Performance prize for her work on extended techniques for the piano. At Cornell, she is a Faculty Fellow with the Atkinson Center for Sustainability.
Image: "St Lucia Crown" - made from marine debris collected from the Outer Cape (fishing net and line, shotgun shells, tennis balls, and balloon string), 2025
In the news
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- Project celebrates the beauty of humpback whale songs
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- Locally Grown Dance explores relationships through dance, live music and media
- Locally Grown Dance performances showcase improvisation, discipline
- Cornell Council for the Arts supports 35 new projects
- 'Bitter Banquet' a feast for the senses