Akshaya Avril Tucker

About Akshaya

Akshaya Avril Tucker (she/her/hers) is a composer who draws inspiration from the music and dance traditions of South Asia, having trained as a cellist and Odissi dancer from a young age. Tucker explores meditative, gestural, and effervescent soundscapes, especially in her works for strings.

Her recent commissions include works for Brooklyn Rider (co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall), Carpe Diem String Quartet, and WindSync. Her music has been performed by Brooklyn Rider; A Far Cry; members of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the San Francisco Symphony; Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; Brightwork New Music; Salastina Music Society; Duo Cortona; Third Coast Chamber Collective; Hindustani vocalist Saili Oak; and many others. In 2019, she won an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award.

She holds an M.M. in Composition from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in Music from Brown University. She is an alumna from the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music (2017-2018), and a member of the second cohort of GLFCAM’s Composing Earth, in 2022-2023.

I encourage my students to take an active role in their own learning by growing their curiosity, building community with one another, and bearing witness to their own innate creativity.