Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe

Stéphanie is a quixotic human who hates bios. She’d sooner hand you her actual shopping list than the usual institution-blessed rundown—after all, the Western spaces she now commands were never designed with her in mind. Even her existence is unorthodox, the product of adventurous, globe-trotting academics who met in a Rwandan university library in the ’70s. Dubbed l’enfant “pourquoi” (the “why” child) by those who hold her embarrassing stories and secrets, Stéphanie has spent her life dismantling norms, collaborating wildly, questioning “for who, for what,” and finding ways to open doors for all her intersections. If you want the nerd version, see below. Otherwise, please come say muraho! (Kinyarwandan for hello!)

Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe is a Rwandan-British composer, arts and culture strategist and broadcaster working between Narrm/Melbourne and Rwanda. Her research-based practice explores how culture is constructed and archived through experiential narratives, shaped by her tertiary training in composition and performance practice. Multiple forms of synaesthesia—sound/colour/texture, auditory-tactile, and spatial sequence—add a neurodiverse dimension to her polycultured identity. Fluorescent globes buzz like Star Wars lightsabers, squeaky supermarket trolleys trigger full-body pins and needles, and some music appears as rainbow clouds—squeezy hugs of goosebumps made audible.

Drawing on Rwandese cultural knowledge-sharing styles, contemporary art music and visual art techniques, research methods from her work in social ethnography, and insights from her Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultancy, Stéphanie’s layered installations and theatrical performances keep cultural context front and center. Since 2018, she and oboist/artistic director Ben Opie have presented research-based interactive storytelling experiences in large-scale public venues including the National Gallery of Victoria and State Library Victoria. Stéphanie’s ongoing research on the global history of art music, which began in 1999, underpins her work in graphic scores, artworks, and a musical conversation series where audiences become active participants in a multisensory live space. This scholarly curiosity also drives Passenger, her weekly show on ABC Classic and the Listen app, inviting national and international listeners on an audio voyage matching storytelling with art music from around the world—particularly highlighting non-Western expressions of people and place.

She’s held diverse residencies, from serving as Reader In Residence with Dr. Torika Bolatagici’s Community Reading Room project, to diving with the largest giant cuttlefish congregation in the world as a researcher-artist fellow with the Forum of Sensory Motion; virtually conducting a Parisian sharing of her requiem for people and cultures lost to colonial genocide; and remotely directing a food-based composition commission that was cooked/played by Montreal musicians and heard/eaten by the audience.