Kirin McElwain is a cellist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer working in the realms of experimental, improvised, contemporary classical, and popular music.
In her own sound and compositional practice, she uses cello, modular synthesizer, and voice to explore the spaces between formal structures and chaos, western classical traditions and noise, and ideas of “goodness” and “correctness.”
Her self-released solo debut EP Viriditas received praise from Foxy Digitalis, A Closer Listen, and made the 2023 end of year lists at Anxious Magazine and A Closer Listen.
Trained through the graduate level as a classical cellist, Kirin is equally at home in concert halls, recording studios, and DIY spaces. As a cellist, she has recorded for numerous film and television scores (HBO, National Geographic, Gimlet Media, PBS, NPR), and has performed with contemporary artists (Post Malone, Ioanna Gika, This Will Destroy You), and has collaborated as part of mixed media installations (the MET, James Cohan Gallery, Neue Galerie) and dance pieces (Claudia Schreier Company), in addition to traditional classical classical performances (Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, Kimmel Center). As a composer, she has written scored work for Diaphanous Ensemble and her cello octet sight lines was commissioned by BoCoCelli at Boston Conservatory.
Kirin has been an artist in residence at Elektron Musikstudion (Stockholm, SE), Smith College (MA, USA), and the Westben Center for the Arts (ON, CAN), and a fellow in the New Amsterdam Records Comp Lab (NYC),