Born in 1983 in Philadelphia, of Kānaka Maoli, i.e., Native Hawaiian, descent. Lanzilotti is a composer and multimedia artist whose  works often explore dramatic expanses of colour and timbre, engaging with themes of place, displacement, and layered time.

Lanzilotti was a 2022 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Music for with  eyes the color of time (string orchestra), which the Pulitzer committee called, “a vibrant composition … that distinctly combines  experimental string textures and episodes of melting lyricism.”  Her other honours include a Creative Capital Award, Native Arts  & Cultures Foundation’s SHIFT – Transformative Change and  Indigenous Arts Award, and recognition as a 2025 USA Fellow. 

She has received additional distinguished fellowships & residencies through The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Casa  Wabi, Merwin Conservancy, McKnight Visiting Composer  Residency Program, Copland House Residency Award, and  MacGeorge Fellowship at the University of Melbourne, among  others.

Her works have been presented at international festivals such as  Ars Electronica (Austria), Sonic Arts Biennial (Netherlands), UnEarthed: a festival of listening and environment (UK), Ojai Music  Festival (USA), and Thailand International Composition Festival; and in venues such as the Philharmonie de Paris and Tokyo  Metropolitan Theatre. In 2025 Lanzilotti’s “luminous new piece”  (Alex Ross, The New Yorker) of light and stone opened the New  York Philharmonic’s season and Gustavo Dudamel’s first concert  as the orchestra’s Music & Artistic Director designate.

As a recording artist, Lanzilotti has played on albums from Björk’s  Vulnicura Live and Joan Osborne’s Love and Hate, to David Lang’s  anatomy theatre. Lanzilotti also premiered and recorded Dai  Fujikura’s Viola Concerto Wayfinder as a soloist with the Nagoya  Philharmonic directed by Keita Matsui. in manus tuas, Lanzilotti’s  solo viola album debut, was featured in The Boston Globe’s Top 10  classical albums of 2019 and Bandcamp’s Best Contemporary  Classical Albums of 2019.

As an experimental sound artist, Lanzilotti’s projects include  performing with object instruments created by Isamu Noguchi, Toshiko Takaezu, Harry Bertoia, Adam Morford and Maika  Garnica; and with Gahlord Dewald as a member of The Yes &.  Lanzilotti was part of the inaugural cohort of Wehiwehi, a residency-based gathering of Native Hawaiian artists working at  the intersection of indigeneity and contemporary performance  supported by the Doris Duke Foundation, and hosted at Shangri La Museum in Honolulu, Hawai’i. Additionally, Lanzilotti is  part of the network of musicians and artists in the Wandelweiser  collective.

Lanzilotti’s video installation works have been shown in the Noguchi Museum, Cranbrook Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts in  Houston, Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Honolulu Museum of Art, Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre in  Cyprus, and Alison Jacques Art Gallery in London. As a scholar, Lanzilotti’s written publications include contributions to the monograph Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within (Yale  University Press, 2024), and to Tuning Calder’s Clouds / Sintonías  de las nubes de Calder edited by Vic Brooks, Jennifer Burris, and  Mariana Fernández (Calder Foundation and Athénée Press, 2026),  the first book to explore the artistic, technological, and political  intersections of Alexander Calder’s sculptural Acoustic Ceiling  (1954) in the Aula Magna of the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas. Lanzilotti’s musical work beyond the accident  of time (2019) is included in Walking From Scores (Les presses du  réel), a bilingual anthology of text and graphic scores to be used while walking, from Fluxus to the critical works of current artists,  through the tradition of experimental music and performance. A dedicated educator, Dr. Lanzilotti has been on the faculty at  the New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; University of Northern Colorado  as the Director and founder of the experimental UNCOmmon  Ensemble, Co-director of Open Space Festival of New Music, and  Assistant Professor of Viola; and various international summer  festivals such as the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity INTERPLAY program. Additionally, Lanzilotti created Shaken Not Stuttered, a free online resource demonstrating extended techniques  for strings.

Lanzilotti is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory of Music  (BMus), Yale School of Music (MMus), and Manhattan School  of Music (DMA). In addition, Lanzilotti was an orchestral fellow in the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and New World  Symphony, participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy under  Pierre Boulez, and was the original violist in the Lucerne Festival Alumni Ensemble. Mentors include Hiroko Primrose, Peter  Slowik, Jesse Levine, Martin Bresnick, Wilfried Strehle, Karen  Ritscher, and Reiko Füting.

Selected works: Color Etude 20:17 (For Tom) for trumpet and  piano (2016), Casalmaggiore for viola / violin / cello and fixed  media (2016), With Their I You Your Fuse for double bass (2016),  Birth, Death for obsidian sounding stones, strings and voice /  flute (2017), Gray for viola / cello and percussion (2017), Birth,  Death for obsidian sounding stones, strings and voice / flute  (2017), Ko’u Inoa for viola / violin / cello / bass / guitar (2017),  Leap Year for viola and fixed media (2017), Gray for viola / cello  and percussion, flexible duration (2017), The Yes & - viola(+) and  modular synth cooperation (with Gahlord Dewald, 2017–), Of  Moments for baritone / soprano and Baroque violin (2018), Postcards II: Akari for flute / voice, viola, harp and fixed media (2018),  To You (The Architects Are Most Courageous) for two violins, viola,  cello and piano (2018), Kai Uli for harp and fixed media (2018,  rev. 2020), The Akari Sessions Featuring Romina Monsanto, stereo electroacoustic work (2018), Sound Constructions, immersive  live performance installation (with Nina C. Young and Senem  Pirler, 2018), Forever Forward in Search of the Beautiful for tenor  saxophone and viola (with Brian Horton, 2018), Beyond the Accident of Time for percussion and voices (2019; 8-channel installation version / stereo electroacoustic installation version, 2025),  The Space in Which to See for horn, violin, viola and cello (2019),  Findfor viola / cello / bass and live electronics (2019), With Eyes  the Color of Time for string orchestra (2020), One in One for violin (2020), On Stochastic Wave Behavior for eight voices (2021),  We Began This Quilt There for flute and string quartet (2021),  To Be Two for violin and viola (2021), Daphne for oboe (2021),  Hānau Ka Ua for flute, clarinet, tenor saxophone, percussion, piano, violin, cello (or any subset thereof) and electronics (2021),  Hānau Ka Ua, quadraphonic electroacoustic/installation version (2021), Yesterday Is Two Days Ago, album by Adam Morford & Leilehua Lanzilotti (2021), Ao Kuewa, cooperation with  animator Chelsea Cannon for Symphony of the Hawai’i Forests  (2021), For Toshikofor violin, cello and piano (2022), Meridian  for flute, horn, clarinet, harp and viola (2022), Ahupua’a, string  quartet (2022), For Two Friends of Many Years for piano four  hands (2022), Where We Used to Be for violin (2022), To Speak  in a Forgotten Language for violin (2022), Sky Gatefor ten musicians, flexible instrumentation (2022), Photos from Helen for  string orchestra (2023), Sending Messages for percussion quartet  (2023), The Strong Pulse Beneath the Charred Earth for trumpet, trombone and electric guitar (2023), ‘Ālohilohi for double  bass quartet / double bass (2023), Say It in Your Heart, Say It  in Your Sleep for piano (2023), The Embryology of the Heart for  cello (2023), The Sky in Our Hands, Our Hands in the Sky for  1-channel video (2023), Closed Form Etudes for 1-channel video  (2023), Nicolas Kyrillou in Conversation with Leilehua Lanzilotti  for 1-channel video (2023), Ahupua’a for 1-channel video (2023),  Another Kind of Geometry, stereo electroacoustic work (2023),  Songs for Lili’u for eight voices (SSAATBBB) (2024), Translating Myself and Others for alto flute, cello, harp (2024), Laila for  viola (2024), MMIP for flexible instrumentation (2024), Dance  Suite from Lili’u, choreographed production from the opera Lili’u  (2024), Of Light and Stone for symphony orchestra (2025), While  They Are Still There for percussion, piano / virtual instrument,  string quartet and fixed media (2025), The Water in Your Body Is  Just Visiting for string quartet (2025), Whitebark Pine for trumpet and fixed media (2025), Moananuiākea for string quartet  (2026), In the Garden for string quartet (2026), From Darkness,  Visible Light Is the Bright Mind for harp and electronics (2026),  Ka/Ua, evening-length live music performance for dance (2026),  arrangements of works by other authors.