Leah Kardos is an Australian musician, writer and academic living and working in London.
She makes eclectic, mostly instrumental music that often explores a specific limitation, whether it be a single piano in Feather Hammer (2011), spam emails as lyrics in Machines (2013), the relationships between score and interpretation, composer and performer in Three Preludes (2013), or working with purely analogue instruments and technologies in Rococochet (2017). Bird Rib (2020), explores the reuse and reversal of previous compositions in the construction of new material.
Leah studied piano with Dorothy McCormack and Bevan Crabtree and composition under Philip Bracanin and Robert Davidson at the University of Queensland. Keyboards (pianos, synths, organs) feature heavily in her work, as do recurring motifs ingrained in muscle memory from childhood musical experiences: church bands, Hanon exercises, Debussy, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder. Found sounds and location recordings are woven into productions to suggest narratives. A fan of introducing chance elements into the creative process, Leah uses improvisation, dice and the 'Oblique Strategies' cards to steer her work in unexpected directions. Among her favourite artists are Bjork, Brian Eno, Steve Reich, Kate Bush, Aphex Twin and David Bowie.
Her work has been broadcast on BBC R3 and 6 Music (UK), Triple J and Double J (Australia) and NPR (US), and performed by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Ruthless Jabiru, R. Andrew Lee, Ben Dawson, Laura Wolk-Lewanowicz, Curve Ensemble, Lara James & her trio Triquetra - many of these players also feature/collaborate on her recordings. Her library music has been synced in many prime time TV shows (Masterchef, First Dates, Love Island, Panorama, and many more, all over the world). Her string and orchestral arrangements have used in films, library music and Netflix documentaries.
At Kingston University she lectures in music and music technology, and is the Director of the Visconti Studio, a recording and research facility co-founded with legendary producer Tony Visconti. In 2019 she started the Kingston University Stylophone Orchestra, the only ensemble of its kind in the world. Their debut album, Stylophonika, co-produced with Visconti, was released in January 2022 on Spun Out of Control records. She publishes and releases music with Bigo & Twigetti, contributes reviews and criticism to The Wire, and has written a book that critically analyses David Bowie's Last Works, published by Bloomsbury Academic in early 2022. Her 33 1/3 book on Kate Bush's Hounds of Love will be published 14 November 2024.
She makes eclectic, mostly instrumental music that often explores a specific limitation, whether it be a single piano in Feather Hammer (2011), spam emails as lyrics in Machines (2013), the relationships between score and interpretation, composer and performer in Three Preludes (2013), or working with purely analogue instruments and technologies in Rococochet (2017). Bird Rib (2020), explores the reuse and reversal of previous compositions in the construction of new material.
Leah studied piano with Dorothy McCormack and Bevan Crabtree and composition under Philip Bracanin and Robert Davidson at the University of Queensland. Keyboards (pianos, synths, organs) feature heavily in her work, as do recurring motifs ingrained in muscle memory from childhood musical experiences: church bands, Hanon exercises, Debussy, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder. Found sounds and location recordings are woven into productions to suggest narratives. A fan of introducing chance elements into the creative process, Leah uses improvisation, dice and the 'Oblique Strategies' cards to steer her work in unexpected directions. Among her favourite artists are Bjork, Brian Eno, Steve Reich, Kate Bush, Aphex Twin and David Bowie.
Her work has been broadcast on BBC R3 and 6 Music (UK), Triple J and Double J (Australia) and NPR (US), and performed by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Ruthless Jabiru, R. Andrew Lee, Ben Dawson, Laura Wolk-Lewanowicz, Curve Ensemble, Lara James & her trio Triquetra - many of these players also feature/collaborate on her recordings. Her library music has been synced in many prime time TV shows (Masterchef, First Dates, Love Island, Panorama, and many more, all over the world). Her string and orchestral arrangements have used in films, library music and Netflix documentaries.
At Kingston University she lectures in music and music technology, and is the Director of the Visconti Studio, a recording and research facility co-founded with legendary producer Tony Visconti. In 2019 she started the Kingston University Stylophone Orchestra, the only ensemble of its kind in the world. Their debut album, Stylophonika, co-produced with Visconti, was released in January 2022 on Spun Out of Control records. She publishes and releases music with Bigo & Twigetti, contributes reviews and criticism to The Wire, and has written a book that critically analyses David Bowie's Last Works, published by Bloomsbury Academic in early 2022. Her 33 1/3 book on Kate Bush's Hounds of Love will be published 14 November 2024.
