Jazzik Electrolights

Described as a conductor of “great intensity, without distancing, maneuvering, without indifference” (Neue Muzikzeitung – Leipzig) Zimbabwean-born conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni is widely sought-after for his depth of approach, interpretive imagination, and expressivity, as well as his innovative and thoughtful curation. Kaziboni has led many critically lauded performances with orchestras across the globe, performing at some of the most prestigious concert halls in the world, including Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Hall, Royal Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie, Wiener Konzerthaus, Philharmonie de Paris, Royal Festival Hall & Queen Elizabeth Hall at Southbank Centre, and at Lincoln Center.

A mainstay at such major festivals as the Berlin Festspiele, Maerzmusik, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Ruhrtrianelle, Wien Modern, Wien Festwochen, Festival d’Automne, Warsaw Automn, Holland Festival, Musikfestival Bern, Mostly Mozart, Oregon Bach Festival, Festival MITO, and the Manchester Music Festival among others, Kaziboni’s recent collaborators include esteemed orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, SWR Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de chambre de Genève, and notable ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, Ensemble intercontemporain, Klangforum Wien, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Contrechamps, City of Birmingham New Music Group, International Contemporary Ensemble, Omnibus Ensemble, and the Martha Graham Dance Company among others. Collaborations with acclaimed soloists have included Tabea Zimmermann, Pierre Laurent Aimard, Claire Chase, Leila Josefowicz, Elaine Mitchener, Juliet Fraser, and Steven Schick among many others.

Upcoming debuts this season include the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra (RSO), WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (RSB), Munich Chamber Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica Municipal de São Paulo, the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, and in the summer Kaziboni makes important debuts at Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the Salzburg Festival where he will conduct Salvatore Sciarrino’s opera “Macbeth”.

Kaziboni serves as conductor-in-residence of Klangforum Wien and artist-in-residence/conductor of the International Contemporary Ensemble, music director of the Composers Conference and artistic advisor of the Boston Lyric Opera.

As the recipient of the 2024 Ditson Conductor’s Award, Vimbayi Kaziboni joins a list of laureates that include conducting luminaries and his personal artistic heroes such as Leonard Bernstein, Herbert Blomstedt, Leopold Stokowski, James de Priest, Marin Alsop, Michael Tilson Thomas, and others.

A prolific, multi-faceted artist, widely celebrated as “a conductor who clearly knows his way around an avant-garde score” (The Times – London), critics have hailed Kaziboni among the foremost interpreters of modern classical music of his generation. He has led premieres of hundreds of new works across the globe by composers that include Georg Friedrich Haas (weiter und weiter und weiter…), George Lewis (Song of the Shank, Disputatio, Weathering), Heiner Goebbels (House of Call), John Luther Adams (Prophecies in Stone), Augusta Read Thomas (The Auditions), Dai Fujikura (Shamisan Concerto), Liza Lim (The Spinning World), Yann Robin (Toccata), Nina Šenk (November Night), Jacob TV (The News Suite), and worked directly with other leading composers that include George Benjamin, Helmut Lachenmann, Steve Reich, Rebecca Saunders, Julian Anderson, Francisco Filidei, Felipe Lara, Morten Lauridsen, Olga Neuwirth and Matthias Pintscher, among many others. Moreover, he has had a long association with leading contemporary music groups, Ensemble Modern and Ensemble intercontemporain, where he began his career in his apprentice years as the conductor of the International Ensemble Modern Academy (2012-13), and Ensemble intercontemporain assistant conductor (2015-2017).

A passionate and devoted pedagogue who comes from a family of teachers, Kaziboni has led masterclasses and performances at the world’s top music education institutions including the Royal Academy of Music, Curtis Music Institute, Conservatoire de musique de Genève, Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, London Sinfonietta Academy, and has served as a tutor at ManiFeste Festival, impuls Festival, Epoche f International, and this summer at Lucerne Festival Academy and the Darmstädter Ferienkurse. He has also served on the juries of the La Maestra Women’s Conducting Competition (Paris) and the International Conducting Competition Rotterdam. Kaziboni serves as a professor of orchestral studies and contemporary music at Boston Conservatory at Berklee where he was 2019 Teacher of the Year.

A former Fulbright fellow, Kaziboni holds degrees from the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles and the University of Music and Performing Arts Frankfurt (HfMDK) in Germany.

In 2020, following his appointment as Lecturer in Musical Performance and Digital Arts at Royal Holloway University, Kanga was awarded a £1.4 million UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowship to fund his latest multi-year project Cyborg Soloists. As Director and Principal Investigator, Kanga, together with a host of collaborators, is unlocking new possibilities in music making through interactions with AI and machine learning; interactive visuals and VR; motion and biosensors; and new hybrid instruments.
Cyborg Soloists’ first public performance took place in November 2021 when Kanga gave the world première of his own composition, Steel on Bone for piano, MiMU multi-sensor gloves and electronics at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (hcmf//), where he previously performed in 2017 and 2018. In July 2021, he presented Philip Venables’s first major work for solo piano Answer Machine Tape, 1987 at Time of Music Festival (Finland). The work explores the AIDS crisis through a crucial week in the life of New York artist David Wojnarowicz, using an experimental KeyScanner to allow the piano to control electronics and to type text onto a screen like a typewriter. In the autumn, alongside the national premières of Answer Machine Tape, 1987 at November Music, hcmf// and Paris Autumn Festival, Kanga will unveil his and Neil Luck’s largest-scale project to date: Whatever Weighs You Down using MiMU’s multi-sensor gloves to interact with deaf performance artist Chisato Minamimura at Gaudeamus Festival in Utrecht and London’s Café Oto.
With over 130 world premières under his belt, Kanga’s performances have been heard across the UK, Europe and Australia including at hcmf//, London Contemporary Music Festival, BBC Proms, Cheltenham Festival, Festival Présences (France), Klang Festival (Denmark), Darmstadt (Germany), Resonator Festival (Sweden), CUBE, Graz (Austria), Borealis Festival (Norway), and Melbourne and Sydney Festivals. Commissioning and co-creating new works is at the heart of his music making and Alexander Schubert, Michael Finnissy, Steve Reich, Nicole Lizée, Simon Steen-Anderson, Liza Lim, Laura Bowler, George Benjamin, Shiva Feshareki, Brett Dean, Tansy Davies, Oliver Leith, Laurence Osborne and Brett Furer are but some of the few composers he has worked with since the start of his career.
Zubin Kanga studied Music, Philosophy & Computer Science at the University of Sydney before moving to London where, under the supervision of Rolf Hind and Neil Heyde, he completed a Master’s degree and PhD at the Royal Academy of Music. Following his tenure as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Nice and IRCAM, Paris, he became Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Royal Holloway before his appointments as Lecturer and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow.