Kalaisan Kalaichelvan

KALAISAN KALAICHELVAN is a composer and musician based in both New York, NY and Toronto, Canada. His compositional practice spans multiple disciplines, drawing from film, dance, theatre, and installation.

Named by Ludwig Van as one of “six emerging Canadian composers to keep an eye on” and Playback’s 10 to Watch, his music has been performed and premiered by celebrated ensembles such as the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Glenn Gould New Music Ensemble, MACE, the Dior Quartet, NMC Ensemble and Extended Music Collective. He has held residencies at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, NewAm Composers Lab, Sundance Composers Lab, UCross Foundation, Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and was an alumna of the Canadian Film Centre as one of the 2021 Slaight Music residents. Kalaisan was awarded the SOCAN Emerging Composer Award in 2023 and 2024. He was also awarded the esteemed Kathleen McMorrow Award by the Ontario Arts Foundation in 2024 for the composition and presentation of contemporary classical music in Ontario. In 2023, Kalaisan wrote the music for the film In Flames, which was selected as the Pakistani entry for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards. Kalaisan has scored feature films that have premiered at the Cannes Film Festival (“In Flames”), Toronto International Film Festival (“This Place”, “Shook”, “In Flames”), SXSW (“Seahorse”) and the Tribeca Film Festival (“The Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony”). He is currently working on various commissions and scoring a new Netflix series directed by Simon Barry.

For Nova Dance: Tandava