Colin Stokes is a cellist, composer, music and media technologist, and researcher whose work explores artificial intelligence, generative systems, and immersive audiovisual performance. His research focuses on the design of intelligent computer media systems for musical creation, with particular emphasis on multi-modal generative AI, real-time audio synthesis, and interactive audiovisual environments.
Colin is currently a PhD candidate in Composition at the University of North Texas, where he is pursuing a minor in Artificial Intelligence in Computer Music Systems Design. His research, creative work and teaching have been developed in under the guidance of Marco Buongiorno Nardelli, Panayiotis Kokoras, Joseph Klein, Andra May, Jon Nelson, and David Stout within the Department of Composition and the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia (CEMI) and the Institute for Advanced Research in Technology and the Arts (iARTA). His compositions frequently integrate machine learning, spatial audio, live electronics, and generative visual systems, creating performance environments that exist at the boundaries between music, technology, and media art.
As a performer, Colin maintains an active international career as a cellist. He tours with the Berlin-based electronic crossover ensemble Symphoniacs, with the contemporary classical ensemble Zohn Collective, and as a soloist, performing in major venues and festivals around the world, including the Berlin Tempodrom, Munich Philharmonie, Vienna Hofburg Palace, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Hamburg Laeiszhalle, and Zurich Theater 11, among others. His performance career has also included appearances at Carnegie Weill Hall, Radio City Music Hall, and Lincoln Center, as well as international festivals and tours spanning Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and North America. In 2017 he appeared with Symphoniacs at Die Silvesterparty am Brandenburger Tor, Europe’s largest New Year’s Eve celebration, performing to a live audience of more than 700,000 people in Berlin.
Colin’s recordings appear on more than twenty-five albums released by Universal Music/Polydor, Warner Music Japan, EMI, Neuma Records, and other labels. Across his performing career he has shared the stage with artists ranging from Yo-Yo Ma, Gidon Kremer, and John Williams to Lady Gaga, Chaka Khan, and Heidi Klum, and his performances, broadcasts, and streams have reached audiences of hundreds of millions worldwide.
His work has been presented at major conferences and festivals at the intersection of music, technology, and media art, including the SEAMUS Conference and the Currents Art and Technology Festival in Santa Fe, where multiple works and collaborations with Marco Buongiorno Nardelli and David Stout were featured in 2025. He will also present research at Art & Science: Perspectives and Prospects in 2026.
Colin holds degrees in cello performance from The Juilliard School and the Eastman School of Music.
