ALEKS PILMANIS is a New York City–based composer and performer. His compositions are shaped by reflections on place, memory, and a deep connection to his Latvian heritage. Aleks has won awards including the first-place composition prize at the XV International Latvian New Music Mastercourses for the premiere of his work Chime.

​

Aleks began composing in high school while studying with film composer and producer John Lissauer. He earned his BA in music composition from the State University of New York at New Paltz, where he studied with Phyllis Chen (composition) and Alex Peh (piano). Aleks has participated in festivals and masterclasses such as the Walden School Creative Musicians Retreat and the XV International Latvian New Music Festival. Through these experiences and private lessons, he has worked with composers and performers including Ēriks Ešenvalds, Pēteris Vasks, Dai Fujikura, Adam Tendler, David Friend, Lei Liang, and Gundega Šmite.

​

As a sound designer, Aleks has contributed to interdisciplinary projects that often explore the relationship between movement and sound. Most recently, he composed original music for a campaign by Vogue Adria, blending sound texture with visual choreography.

​

As an arranger and copyist, Aleks has collaborated closely with prominent artists including Claire Chase and Susie Ibarra. His arrangement of Ibarra’s Sunbird was premiered at the 2025 Ojai Music Festival, and he engraved her Pulitzer Prize-winning work Sky Islands, as well as her 2025 premiere CHAN: Sonnets and Devotions in the Wilderness. Aleks is currently transcribing and engraving a new work by Annea Lockwood and Claire Chase for Chase’s Density 2036 series.

​

Aleks’s most recent composition, Spīdi Spoži, Mēnestiņi, a choral work inspired by Latvian folk poems, will be performed at the 2026 American Latvian Song and Dance Festival by a choir of 500 singers at DeVos Hall in Grand Rapids, Michigan.