Ravi Kittappa is a composer of orchestral, chamber, vocal, and electronic music currently residing in Portland, OR. While continually drawing upon the various musics of his diverse background, his interests in embodiment and corporeality of sound have resulted in a recent focus on “situational music” – pieces that embrace the proclivities, propensities, and specificities of the performer in relation to the audience and space in which each work is presented.

Also active as a guitarist and improviser, Ravi has performed alongside artists such as Fred Frith, Myra Melford, J. A. Deane, Daniel Carter, and Ritwik Banerji, among many others.

Ravi holds a Ph.D in music composition from University of California, Berkeley. He studied philosophy at The Johns Hopkins University and music at Columbia University. His composition teachers include Tristan Murail, Arthur Kampela, Franck Bedrossian, Edmund Campion, David Wessel, and Ken Ueno. He has lectured on his work at academic institutions such as The Janacek Conservatory (Ostrava, Czech Republic), Columbia University, UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University, Akademie für Tonkunst (Darmstadt, Germany), Silpakorn University (Bangkok, Thailand), Mahidol University (Bangkok, Thailand), and KM College of Music and Technology (Chennai, India).

In 2018/19, Ravi was a visiting composer at Arts Academy of Prague (HAMU) through a fellowship from the J. William Fulbright Commission. In September of 2022, Ravi joined the faculty of Portland Community College in the Department of Music and Sonic Arts.

Learn more about Ravi here