Beau
Kenyon

Beau Kenyon creates new work across disciplines to bring shared vision into reality.

Beau Kenyon is a Paris-based composer and cultural strategist whose work moves between the concert hall, the gallery, and the civic sphere — driven by a single question: what becomes possible when we center empathy and curiosity to solve problems and create new work?

It is the same curiosity, the same systems thinking, the same belief that healthy collaborative structures unlock what individual effort cannot.

His 2022 contemporary ballet Of Gravity and Light, commissioned and premiered by Ballet Des Moines, translates the orbital mechanics of the Sun-Earth-Moon system into 50 minutes of music, movement, and large-scale film projection. Built on the scientific principles of astrophysics — tidal lock, lunar retreat, the bending of light by gravity — the work uses the solar system as a precise and ancient vocabulary for something more personal: the relationship with his family. Distance that is also devotion. Grief and joy, held together. Developed in partnership with NASA, PBS, and GBH, the work includes a companion science curriculum now used in 7th grade classrooms across Iowa. It is currently streaming on all major platforms.

His new ballet, The Raven — a second collaboration with choreographer Tom Mattingly, again presented by Ballet Des Moines, premieres in October 2026. Drawing on short-form poetry about stars and love set against Poe's Annabelle Lee and The Raven, the work delves into grief, self-isolation, and the threat of extreme individualism. Where Of Gravity and Light looked outward to the cosmos, The Raven looks inward to the dark. Together they form a diptych — a body of work with a coherent through-line: what happens to us when we encounter difficult relationships, and how do we find our way back through gentle curiosity?

Kenyon's broader portfolio spans permanent public installation, augmented reality, film, and site-specific performance. River Constellation (2019), a permanent outdoor sound, sculpture, and light installation at Des Moines Water Works Park, gathers the sounds of the natural landscape into a continuous two-hour composition. Reach You (2022), an augmented reality public artwork created with Jonah and Katrina Goldsaito, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. His sound installation for Accumulation of Dreams (2024) was commissioned by artist Yu-Wen Wu and on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston. His work pairs with Wu's video work to explore themes of immigration, displacement, longing, and belonging. Two archival albums documenting his sound installation work are forthcoming in 2026.

In 2017, Kenyon founded Oakley Collective for Arts + Research — a nonprofit consulting firm now operating across the United States and Europe. Oakley Collective is not a separate practice. It is the same curiosity, the same systems thinking, the same belief that healthy collaborative structures unlock what individual effort cannot. Over nearly a decade, Kenyon has partnered with institutions including the Boston Public Library, Ballet Des Moines, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MIT, NASA, PBS, Iowa State University, and the Boston Public Art Triennial. His consistent function and goal has been helping them and other organizations grow, connect, and build the kind of capacity that outlasts any single engagement or any individual leader.

He holds degrees from Berklee College of Music (B.Mus.) and Tufts University (M.A.), and is on faculty at Northeastern University's College of Arts, Media + Design, where he teaches graduate coursework in arts administration and cultural entrepreneurship. He currently serves on the board of the American Composers Forum and recently served on the board for Boston Art Review (2021–2026, co-chair) and the WGBH Community Advisory Board (2016–2019, co-chair).

Kenyon is based in Paris, where he fulfills commissions and consults throughout Europe and the United States.