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11/12/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 11/12/2026 04:34

Composer Michelle Lou Awarded the Berlin Prize

Published Date

November 12, 2026

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Michelle Lou, associate professor of music at the University of California San Diego, has been selected as a 2026-27 Berlin Prize Fellow by the American Academy in Berlin. The award is presented annually to U.S.-based scholars, writers, composers and artists who represent the highest standards of excellence in their fields. A composer of electro-acoustic music, Lou will produce a project titled "Hybrid Listening," which explores how sound can shape us and our relationship with the world around us.

"Michelle's innovative compositions explore compelling what-if questions at the intersection of art and technology," said Cristina Della Coletta, dean of the School of Arts and Humanities. "Her latest project demonstrates the power of speculative thinking to challenge conventional perspectives and imagine new possibilities for the future. I congratulate Michelle on this well-deserved recognition through the prestigious Berlin Prize."

Just one composer is selected each fellowship period through a competitive process that requires candidates to be nominated before applying. Lou will join a cohort of 10 fellows representing a diverse range of disciplines, from playwriting and political science to history and biomedicine. Together, they will spend four months in residence at the Hans Arnhold Center, a historic lakeside villa in Berlin's Wannsee district.

In addition to making meaningful connections across disciplines, fellows will engage German audiences through lectures, readings, film screenings and performances. The goal of the program is to spark fresh thinking and rigorous dialogue that shapes public discourse and inspires optimism.

"As a composer, it's an honor to be invited to join this residential fellowship to meet and work with notable scholars, policy makers, artists and writers," shared Lou. "I'm especially excited to have the time and space to make recordings around Berlin, catch up on reading and generate new creative ideas that will feed me into the future."

Lou has deep connections to Berlin. She has lived in the bustling urban city and maintains close ties with friends, colleagues and collaborators there, whom she visits several times a year. An important part of her residency will involve capturing environmental sounds, from animal life and architectural resonance to infrastructural systems and the "patterned rhythms of daily human activity."

"I will begin by considering the dynamic sonic textures of Berlin, a city that's shaped by layered languages, migrations, histories and a vibrant international cultural scene," explained Lou. "Treating the world as a spacetime field, the microphone will function as a roaming, attentive ear that gathers sound as situated evidence of how environments vibrate, shift and exert pressure on people within them."

At the core of her project is the question: how can our sound environment contribute to the development of our identity - as well as stir feelings of belonging or displacement? To answer this, Lou is investigating the space between sounds and what happens when environmental and synthetic sounds coalesce into a hybrid form.

Recordings from the city will metamorphose with the introduction of synthetic sounds in the studio. Using a custom-made patch - a kind of virtual instrument that uses code to merge distinct sounds into hybrid forms - Lou will experiment with the boundaries between traces of real life and digitally created sounds that together form a new speculative environment.

"Timbre becomes a transformative agent where the resonance of one sound reshapes the perceptual identity of another, producing hybrid forms that resist stable categorization."

"I will begin by considering the dynamic sonic textures of Berlin, a city that's shaped by layered languages, migrations, histories and a vibrant international cultural scene." Michelle Lou

The project will culminate in a multi-channel performance on May 7, 2027, at the St. Elisabeth Church (Elisabethkirche) in Berlin, built in 1835 and reconstructed as a performance and exhibition space following a fire in 1945. Audiences will be immersed in a speculative sonic space formed by synthesized and resynthesized sounds that shift and move throughout the church.

Lou's compositions have been performed at leading international contemporary music festivals, including Wien Modern, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Darmstadt Summer Course and MaerzMusik in Berlin. She has received commissions from the Fromm Music Foundation, Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and Norwegian Arts Council. Her distinguished honors include a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard University, an Elliott Carter Rome Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome and a Fulbright Fellowship.

A UC San Diego Department of Music alumna, Lou earned degrees in double bass performance and music composition, followed by a doctorate in composition from Stanford University. She has also held visiting faculty appointments at Dartmouth College and UC Santa Cruz, among other institutions.

Read more news about: Alumni, School of Arts and Humanities, ArtsConnect

Lou pictured following a solo performance at Cafe Oto in London in April 2025. Photo by CCRMA Dave.
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