Niki Harlafti

Niki Harlafti is a Greek, Chicago-based composer with a PhD in Music Composition from the Bienen School of Music, Northwestern University (Chicago), and an MM in Composition and Theory from the New England Conservatory of Music (Boston). Her work pivots between sensitivity and violence, comedy and drama; it exists in the reflective space between the familiar and the unfamiliar. Her music currently explores the physicality of sound, the dramaturgy of performance, improvisation, language as a musical tool, and electronics. Lastly, she is passionate about social justice and strives to make art in ways that reflect her values.

Her music has been performed by Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, loadbang (ΝΥC), ~Nois (Chicago), The Megalopolis Saxophone Orchestra (NY), guitarist Ruben Mattia Santorsa (Berlin), bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward (Chicago), and others. Her works have been performed at Roulette (NYC), LSO St Luke’s (London), Rambert Dance (London), The DiMenna Center for Classical Music (NYC), Constellation (Chicago), Musikinstitut Darmstadt (DE), IYCA Ticino (CH), June in Buffalo Festival (NY), Ear Taxi (Chicago), ECCE Music Festival (FR), and the Onassis Stegi (Athens, GR).

Her upcoming works include doRon eauTomb, a commission for violin and cello by the Onassis Stegi (GR | 2024), and Perperos for solo saxophone commissioned by Thomas Giles (NYC | 2024). In her creative journey, she has collaborated with many poets, women librettists and choreographers, cinematographers, as well as visual artists in search of transcendent forms of expression that go beyond absolute music.