Kate Milligan (b. 1996) is a Western Australian composer, designer, and researcher currently based in The Netherlands. Her work addresses theories of time, ecology, and the more-than-human, with particular attention to water-worlds and fluid imaginaries. At the audio-visual intersection, these works often include exploratory music notation, using a range of new media technology. In 2025 she begins a PhD at The University of Sydney within the Australian Research Council Laureate Project Multispecies Creativity and Climate Communication, directed by Prof. Liza Lim.

Her performance-installation Visions | Vestiges won ‘Work of the Year: Chamber Music’ at the 2024 Australian Art Music Awards. She has been commissioned by electro-acoustic ensembles and projects including the London Symphony Orchestra Soundhub, The Sound Collectors Lab, Standard Issue, Decibel New Music Ensemble, the Australian National Academy of Music, and the Summers Night Project. Her sound design is exhibited internationally, including at Post Territory Ujeongguk (KR), Theatreship (UK), and the IRCAM Forum (FR). For her artistic direction she has won funding from the Arts Council England, Creative Australia, APRA/AMCOS, and the Western Australian DLGSC, amongst others. 

With a background in feminist musicology, Kate’s music-making often engages critically with institutions and ideology. Her writing on new music and art is published in both popular and academic contexts, and she is a regular contributor to TEMPO: A Quarterly Review of New Music, Cambridge University Press. Having been appointed the inaugural Conducting Fellow at Perth Symphony Orchestra in 2020, she has written extensively about gender in this hyper-visible profession, and about musical-discursive intersections with popular and neoliberal feminisms.

Kate is a graduate of Information Experience Design at the Royal College of Art, London. This study was generously supported by the Schenberg Music Fellowship and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust. She also holds a MMus (musicology) and a BA(Hons) (composition) from The University of Western Australia, where she studied with James Ledger and Chris Tonkin, and under the supervision of Doctors Sarah Collins and Cecilia Sun.

She is currently working on a new work entitled Dark Oceanography in collaboration with The Sound Collectors Lab, the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century, and the Monash University Performing Arts Centre. This project integrates climate science with experimental music, modelling oceanic systems with 63-channel spatial audio and percussion ensemble. The premiere is scheduled for 27th July 2025, with further performances to be announced.