Mikel Kuehn's Home Page

Kuehn’s music has been described as having “sensuous phrases … producing an effect of high abstraction turning into decadence.”

"The prize for sonic inventiveness went to Mikel Kuehn's Chiaroscuro, a work for cello and electroacoustics. Its interaction between performer and speakers and subtle sonic explorations of recorded and real cello sounds was both interesting and engaging."

American Composer Mikel Kuehn received degrees in composition from the Eastman School of Music (Ph.D., MA) and the University of North Texas (BM). Kuehn’s music has received awards from ASCAP, BMI, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2000 and 2002 First Hearing Contests), Eastman (Hanson and McCurdy Prizes), and the League of Composers/ISCM Composition Competition (First Prize), as well as mentions in the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Contest, and the Luigi Russolo Competition (Italy). His music has twice been selected to represent the United States abroad (by ISCM and SEAMUS), in both the acoustic and electro-acoustic mediums, and has been programmed on concerts and conferences by the Birmingham Art Music Alliance, the Bonk Festival, Cycle de concerts de musique par ordinateur (Université Paris 8, France), the Civic Orchestra of Chicago (Cliff Colnot, cond.), pianist David Burge, Electronic Music Midwest, Ensemble 21, Festival Elektrokomplex (Vienna, Austria), the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival, saxophonists Jean-Michel Goury and John Sampen, Harvey Sollberger and the New York New Music Ensemble, the International Computer Music Conference (Ann Arbor and Barcelona), the June in Buffalo Festival, the Kesatuan Duo, the League of Composers/ISCM, members of the New Millennium Ensemble, the Orpheus Chamber Music Series, the Society of Composers, Inc., Sonic Residues 02 (Australia). He has lectured at national conferences of SEAMUS, the Society of Music Theory, the Society of Composers, Inc., and Eastman’s 2003 Berio Festival. He is the author of nGEN, a free multi-platform computer music application used internationally and is currently Director of the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music at Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, Ohio). Recent activities include commissions and performances from cellist Craig Hultgren, New York’s Flexible Music, Belgium’s Thelema Trio, and Parisian saxophonist Jean-Michel Goury as well as residencies at the Banff Centre and the MacDowell Colony. Kuehn was recently awarded an Individual Creative Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council.