Kali Malone is an American composer and organist, born in Colorado in 1994 and raised in Denver, who settled in Stockholm after a chance meeting with Ellen Arkbro in New York. Having first studied sustainable agriculture, she trained in electroacoustic composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, and her research into historical temperaments led her to apprentice with the organ tuner Jan Börjeson.
The Sacrificial Code (iDEAL Recordings, 2019), nearly two hours of austere organ studies, brought her wide attention, followed by Living Torch, an electroacoustic work for the GRM Acousmonium in Paris. Does Spring Hide Its Joy, made with Stephen O’Malley and the cellist Lucy Railton, was recorded in the empty halls of Berlin’s Funkhaus and MONOM during the 2020 lockdown. All Life Long (Ideologic Organ, 2024) extends her writing to brass quintet and chamber choir. At one Berlin concert she and O’Malley closed by switching off the organ’s blower, letting the pipes fade as the air ran out.