is a composer, musician, and director. A 2014 Guggenheim Fellow and the winner of the 2013 Berlin Prize for Music, he has created over 70 works for various instrumentation and media. Innovative use of sound, image, space, and time allows Coleman to create work that expands our understanding of the world. Since 2001 his work has focused on the global transformation of culture and music’s relationship with other media such as architecture, video, and dance. He studied painting, music and film making at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where his teachers included legendary experimental film artists Stan Brakhage and Ernie Gehr, composer Robert Snyder, and painter Barbara Rossi.
Coleman has an extensive record working internationally. He was composer-in-residence at the American Academy in Berlin for 2013 and was the William Penn composer-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome in 2011. He has held residencies at Shofuso Japanese House (Philadelphia, 2009), Kunst Raum Sylt Quelle (Germany, 2008), Westwerk (Hamburg, 2007), Taipei Artists Village (2007), University of Lübeck (2005), House of World Cultures (Berlin, 2003/4), Takefu International Music Festival (2002) Spritzen Haus (Hamburg, 1995), and ASAP (Maine, 2000/1). In July 2005, he was composer-in-residence in at the Irtijal Festival in Beirut and in 2001, fellow of the Japan–United States Friendship Commission and lived in Japan for eight months. He has received four fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council (1992– 2000) and New Jersey State Arts Council (2008), as well as grants from the NEA, Arts Midwest, American Music Center, American Composers Forum, Philadelphia Music Project, and others. He has received commissions from Tom Buckner, Japan Society New York, PHACE, The Crossing, Network for New Music, Trio Accanto, Klangforum Wien, Chamber Music America, Ensemble 01, E–Mex Ensemble, NRW Culture Foundation, Renaissance Society, International House of Japan and Philadelphia, Chicago Cultural Center, Takefu Festival, HKW Berlin, Konzerthaus Wien, MaerzMusik, and the Ernst von Siemens Foundation.
Coleman has been a guest lecturer at many universities, including Chiao-Tung University, Taipei National University of the Arts (2007), and Hong Kong University (2009). His paintings, films, and musical scores have been widely exhibited, including shows at the Art Institute of Chicago (1984) and MCA Chicago (2000). His ongoing projects feature musicians from many parts of the globe. In 2001, with musicians from Japan and the United States, he created the Ensemble N_JP. Works such as Andolangen, Kyoto Naigai, Sendai Transmissions were composed for this group and explore music’s relationship with cinema and architecture. These and other projects have brought Coleman’s work to many audiences in Europe, Asia, and North America.
In the area of improvised music, he has played in concert with many important musicians, including Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Roscoe Mitchell, William Parker, Taku Sugimoto, Kevin Drumm, Theo Bleckmann, and many others. He has recorded with Jim O’Rourke, Mats Gustaffson, Guillermo Gregorio, Tony Conrad, John Wolf Brennan, Gastr del Sol, Uchihashi Kazuhisa, Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M., and Franz Hautzinger. His 2006 CD with Lebanese musician Raed Yassin was highly praised in The Wire, as was the 2010 release of his recording with the Rome based ensemble Ossatura.
Gene Coleman has worked as a director of new music programmes and festivals. In 2007 he collaborated with the US State Department and Kennedy Center on the Tabadol Project, an ambitious concert and outreach project with five Lebanese musicians in six US cities. Since 2000 he has been the artistic director of Soundfield, a producing organisation with operations in Philadelphia and internationally. He was artistic director and guest composer for Transonic, an innovative festival about globalization and new music at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin in 2003 and 2004. In 1997 he organised a festival in Chicago of music by the German composer Helmut Lachenmann in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut. Gene Coleman is the director of Ensemble Noamnesia, a new music group he founded in 1987. Under his direction, the group has worked with many well-known composers, including Salvatore Sciarrino, George Crumb, Chao-Ming Tung, Luc Ferrari, Helmut Lachenmann, Vinko Globokar, Yuji Takahashi, Otomo Yoshihide, Malcolm Goldstein, Burkhard Stangl, Alvin Curran, Michael Maierhof, Gerhard Staebler, Kunsu Shim, Mathias Spahlinger, and many others.

Major works: L.A.R., mixed media work for musicians, painters and film projections (1985), Heterophonic Time Hood for voice, tape and ensemble (1987), Concerto for violin and bass clarinet (1988), Exit Trio for clarinet, violin and cello (1989), Bands for recorder consort, percussion and live electronics (1989), Umtauschen for ensemble (1992), Lacunae (With Distant Sounds) for ensemble (1994), Minutes for ensemble (1995), Roarsearch for two ensembles (1996), Omaggio a S. Behrend for ensemble (1996), Backlight for ensemble (1997), Quasi–F for ensemble (1998), Sordino II for ensemble (1998), Ether Lift: C for ensemble (1998), Klavierraum for piano and nine instruments (1998), Luft for piano with amplification and feedback, baritone saxophone and percussion (1999), Queen of Mars, music for the silent film Aelita, Queen of Mars , for theremin, live electronics and ensemble (2000), Cut Cloud for bass koto, shō, hichiriki, bass clarinet and computer (2001), Cloud Cut for three guitars and ensemble (2001), Bun’ya for 21 instruments and ad libitum soloists (2001), Music for Blood of a Poet for ensemble (2001), Nebulae/Specks for two bass clarinets and ensemble (2002), Cloud Cut II for gagaku and live electronics (2002), Atman II for guitar, bass clarinet, live electronics and gagaku (2002), Transcription of the Air for ensemble (2002), Shredded Heritage III for two guitars, live electronics and gagaku (2003), YAGO for saxophone quartet, live electronics, gagaku and video (2003), Cloud 5 for shō and ensemble (2003), Phoenix Rising for ensemble, shō and sheng (2004), Reroute for ensemble (2004), M+A #1 for koto, shamisen, shō, bass clarinet and electronics (2004), M+A #2 for guzheng and ensemble (2004), Mt. 10 for shō and ensemble (2004), CHAO for guzheng and ensemble (2005), Shredded Heritage IV, for gagaku, koto and piano (2005), CC @ SD for ensemble (2005), Kyoto In_Ex for traditional and experimental Japanese musicians and video (2005), Fire and Ice V for string quartet, sheng, guzheng and percussion (2006), YAGO II for ensemble and video (2006), Cloud 5 for shō and ensemble (2007), Andolangen for ensemble and video (2007), Orpheus in China for ensemble and CD (2007), Fire and Ice II for bass clarinet, guzheng, electronics and video (2008), Pachinko / Zen for speaker, prerecorded sounds and ensemble (2008), TOMBO for gagaku and ensemble with video projections (2008), Pachinko-Zen II for speaker, ensemble and electronics (2009), I, Radio for ensemble, voices and electronics (2009), Future City for Chinese ensemble, string quartet and multiple-screen video projections (2009), Hyper–Dream for ensemble and video projections (2009), Ding-Dong for 7 voices and ensemble, to words by Hendrik Jackson (2009), A Page of Madness, film music, for ensemble, electronics, shakuhachi and bass clarinet (2010, version for Japanese and Western instruments, 2013), Diary of Water for koto and ensemble (2011), Wave upon Wave for Western and Japanese instruments with video projections (2011), Kyoto Naigai for Western and Japanese instruments with video projections (2011), Nine Chains... for ensemble and video (2012), Our Private Sky for e-guitar and trombone (2012), Horizon for voice with Chinese and Western instruments and video projections (2012), Sendai Transmissions for chamber orchestra, solo players and multiple projection film (2013), HARA for ensemble with video projections (2014).