Leilehua Lanzilotti is a composer, multimedia artist, and curator whose work explores the expressive possibilities of sound, colour, and timbre. Through world-building across multi-media installation, performance, and composition, Lanzilotti engages themes of language and water sovereignty, land stewardship, and collective care. A 2022 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Music, Lanzilotti’s work has been presented at Ars Electronica, the Philharmonie de Paris, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, among others. Her recent projects include of light and stone, written for the New York Philharmonic’s 2025–26 season, and the sky in our hands, our hands in the sky – a 2023 video installation honouring wahi pana, or ‘places with a heartbeat’ in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi.

As a recording artist, Lanzilotti has played on albums from Björk’s Vulnicura Live (2015/2016) and Joan Osborne’s Love and Hate (2014), to Dai Fujikura’s Chance Monsoon (2017) and David Lang’s anatomy theater (2019).

Lanzilotti has received awards and fellowships from United States Artists, Creative Capital, and the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and is the founder of Every Morning We Rise, a platform for nontraditional art and music experiences. Grounded in her Kanaka Maoli heritage, her work invites listeners to imagine worlds of reciprocity, resilience, and hope.

Dr. Lanzilotti studied at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Yale School of Music, and Manhattan School of Music.