Gene Coleman is a composer, musician and director. He is the recipient of a 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2013 Berlin Prize in Music Composition from The American Academy in Berlin. Currently he is a NichiBei Fellow of the US-Japan Friendship Commission, with the premiere of his commissioned work KATA to take place in Tokyo in July 2021.

Coleman's work focuses on the global transformation of cultures and music's relationship with science, video and architecture. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with filmmaker Stan Brakhage, painter Barbara Rossi and composer Robert Snyder. He was an affiliated fellow at the American Academy in Rome (2011) and was composer in residence at Shofuso House (Philadelphia 2009), Westwerk (Hamburg, 2007), Taipei Artists Village (2007), Irtijal Festival (Beirut, 2005), Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin (2003-2004), Takefu Music Festival (Japan, 2002) and in Tokyo (US-Japan Fellowship in 2001 and 2021). He has collaborated with a wide range of musicians and composers; from Jim O'Rourke and Otomo Yoshihide to Helmut Lachenmann and George Crumb. Many groups have commissioned his music and film work and presented it around the world, including Ensemble N_JP, Klangforum Wien, The Japan Society New York, The Ernst von Siemens Foundation, Chamber Music America, Network for New Music, The Graham Foundation, I-House Philadelphia, Phace Ensemble, The Museum of Modern Art, The Crossing, Maerzmusik Festival, Warsaw Autumn Festival, The Venice Biennale, The Fromm Foundation, The JACK Quartet and others.