Lia Kohl

Born in New York in 1989 and raised in San Francisco within a family of musicians, Lia Kohl relocated to Chicago in 2013, where she developed work at the intersection of improvisation, contemporary music and sound experimentation. A cellist, composer and performance artist, she builds a practice that pairs the cello with field recordings, radio fragments and stage formats that sometimes combine image, movement and theatre. Her path has led to collaborations with Macie Stewart, Zachary Good, Makaya McCraven, Claire Rousay, Steve Gunn, James Elkington and Whitney Johnson, as well as with ensembles and organizations such as Manual Cinema, Honestly Same and Mocrep, of which she is also a member and curator. On record, Lia Kohl released Too Small to Be a Plain (2022), The Ceiling Reposes (2023) and Normal Sounds (2024), three albums that extend an electroacoustic approach attentive to texture, editing and the sounds of everyday life. She has also presented her work at venues such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Walker Art Center.