Brian Joseph Questa (b. 1988, New York City) is an Irish-Italian-American composer currently based in Berlin, Germany. His music spans multiple genres and styles, and is featured in various mediums: from film, dance, electronic music, sound and video installation, and instrumental music.

 

He has been a resident at the Electronic Music Studios of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and his art installation work was twice awarded a Special Jury Mention at the Japan Media Arts Festival. Further appearances as a sound and installation artist include the International Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA 2019), the Center for Digital Culture in Mexico City, and the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC).

 

As a composer, his works have been performed at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music, the Seoul International Computer Music Festival, the Kintai Music Festival, and the Tonraum Festival in Graz, among others. His music has been performed by the Riot Ensemble, the Badische Staatskapelle, the Melos Collective, and the Sfera Ensemble. As a double-bassist he has performed with members of the Klangforum Wien and jazz artists such as Han Bennink, Mary Halvorson, and Tony Malaby.
 

His current compositional practice is informed by artistic research practices began as a student at the Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics at the Kunstuniversität Graz. His work explores the influence of the aesthetic language of the classical and modern eras by way of quotation, sampling, and the re-processing of  both musical and non-musical data.

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The versatility of his output reflects his upbringing in the pluralistic music world of New York City, where he gained his musical education and spent 10 years as a double-bassist before moving to Germany in 2016 to study composition with composer, Wolfgang Rihm. He received a B.Mus. from the Manhattan School of Music in NYC, a M.Mus. from the State University of Music in Stuttgart (HMdK) and a MA in Computer Music from the Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics, University of Arts (KUG), in Graz, Austria.