Amirtha Kidambi

Amirtha Kidambi serves as Adjunct Associate Professor and Director of the Brooklyn College Electroacoustic Ensemble (BEE) within the Conservatory of Music at the School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts, Brooklyn College. An artist-scholar based in Brooklyn, she creates subversive sonic interventions across free jazz, electroacoustic, and South Asian devotional traditions, centering decolonization and border deconstruction as critical responses to contemporary socio-political realities.

Her academic foundation includes:

• Bachelor's from Loyola Marymount University
• Master's from Brooklyn College
• Ph.D. from Columbia University

in Ethnomusicology, Musicology, and Performance.

Kidambi's research interrogates hegemonic structures through Sonic Arts, Ethnomusicology, and Critical Decolonial Studies. She examines improvisation, electroacoustic composition, and South Asian musical practices as tools for political resistance, with scholarly contributions appearing in Routledge Voice & Identity Reader, New York Times, and Sound American. Her work emphasizes community-centered knowledge production and anti-colonial pedagogy.

Key recognitions:

• Working Artist Fellow, Pioneer Works (current)
• Best Experimental Film, Blackstar Fest (for composition in Suneil Sanzgiri's anticolonial film)

She has secured major grants from NYFA, Jerome Foundation, and Asian Cultural Council. As co-organizer of South Asian Artists in Diaspora and Musicians Against Police Brutality, she mobilizes artistic action across venues from Silent Barn to MoMA PS1. Kidambi leads the protest ensemble Elder Ones and implements decolonial curricula at institutions nationwide.