TJ Cole

Creator During the 2022-2023 Season

TJ Cole (they/them) is a composer, producer, and performer currently based in Louisville, KY. TJ's work often bridges the visual and tactile worlds with the emotional and auditory ones. Drawing from both traditional and experimental elements, acoustic and electronic sounds, eclectic and homogenous styles, TJ finds joy in blending contrasting elements to explore fresh ways of hearing and experiencing music.

​Additionally, TJ has received commissions from Carnegie Hall, the Baltimore, Cincinnati, and New Haven Symphony Orchestras, Music in the Vineyards, and numerous others. Their compositions have been showcased by the Chicago, Atlanta, St.Louis, Detroit, and Curtis Symphony Orchestras, the Minnesota and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras, the Dover Quartet, among others. Additionally, they have collaborated on various ventures as an orchestrator and arranger with Time for Three and held the position of composer-in-residence at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in 2014.

Recently TJ was part of the inaugural class of the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps program (2022-23). This year-long residency involved composing new large-scale works for the orchestra and spearheading community engagement initiatives across Louisville.

TJ has a strong passion for collaborative endeavors. Currently, they are an active performer in Choir Siren, an electro-acoustic duo based in Louisville. Choir Siren combines improvised music, live sound design, movement, and props in alternative performance spaces, creating unique experiences that respond directly to their surroundings. Additionally, they have been a singer-songwriter, producer, and engineer in Twin Pixie, a fully electronic synth-pop band. Twin Pixie's creative direction revolved around the fusion of queerness, pop culture, and the supernatural.

TJ is deeply committed to music-related community engagement projects. In their yearlong ArtistYear Fellowship (2016-17), they co-facilitated musical performances and songwriting workshops with residents of Project HOME, a Philadelphia-based organization fighting to end chronic homelessness. During the 2022-23 Louisville Orchestra Creator-Corps residency, TJ curated and composed music to accompany children's stories performed at various Louisville Free Public Libraries. They also collaborated with VOICES of Kentuckiana, an LGBTQ+ and allies community chorus in Louisville, on 'Those Moments,' an ongoing project that shares choir members' stories and experiences with gender.