Photo by Priscilla Jimenez
Rubin Kodheli is a New York–based composer, cellist, and improviser whose work moves across contemporary chamber music, jazz, film, and interdisciplinary performance.
For nearly a decade, Rubin Kodheli collaborated closely with artist, composer, writer, and filmmaker Laurie Anderson. Their work together included Letters to Jack, a performance project created by Anderson.
Kodheli’s eclectic work amounts to an intriguing sonic collage able to enrapture and captivate audiences.
Kodheli’s musical foundation was shaped in Albania, where he grew up immersed in the country’s folk traditions and in the rehearsals of his mother, singer and actress Justina Aliaj. At fifteen, he moved to Belgium to study at l’Académie d’Uccle, followed by further training at the Richard Strauss Konservatorium in Germany. In the 1990s, he became the first Albanian student to be admitted to The Juilliard School, where he studied on scholarship with cellist Fred Sherry.
Following his studies at Juilliard, Kodheli’s work as an improviser—particularly his collaborations with dancers and fellow composer-performers—led him to develop his voice as a composer. In 2013, choreographer Elisa Monte commissioned him to create a fifteen-minute work, for which they won a grant from New Music USA.
In his compositions and performances, Kodheli expands the expressive range of the cello, drawing on the timbres of guitar, percussion, and the human voice. His music combines rhythmic precision, improvisational freedom, and a strong sense of atmosphere, inviting repeated listening and sustained engagement. His work in films brings the same emotional clarity and textural depth to the screen.
Drawing on a wide range of musical and creative collaborations, Kodheli continues to develop work with filmmakers, dancers, choreographers, visual artists, rappers, and fellow composers in New York City and internationally.