Leila Bordreuil is a cellist, composer and sound artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her music accesses concepts from noise, free jazz, contemporary classical and other experimental traditions but adheres to no single genre. Mixing melancholic cello melodies with harsh noise walls, she creates “steadily scathing music, favoring long and corrosive atonalities.” (New York Times). Driven by a fierce interest in pure sound and inherent texture, Leila challenges conventional cello practice through extreme extended techniques and amplification methods, to the extent she sometimes seems to be playing the P.A rather than her cello. Her composed works frequently incorporate sound-spatialization by way of site-specific pieces and multichannel installations. 

Bordreuil is a dedicated improviser and “rising figure in New York’s improvised music scene” (The Chicago Reader), having performed with a wide variety of artists such as Marina Rosenfeld, Zeena Parkins, Bill Nace, Toshimaru Nakamura, Kim Gordon, Eli Kezsler, Thurston Moore, Chris Corsano, Nate Wooley, C. Spencer Yeh, Aki Onda and SENYAWA to name a few. 

Ongoing collaborative projects include duos with Tamio Shiraishi (Fushitutsa), Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Kali Malone, Laurel Halo, Zach Rowden (Tongue Depressor), Julia Santoli, a trio with Susan Alcorn and Ingrid Laubrock, and the “Feedback Ensemble”, which she co-leads with Luke Stewart (Irreversible Entanglements).

Leila’s work has been showcased at The Whitney Museum, MoMA PS1, Lincoln Center, The Kitchen, The Stone, Barbican (London), Cafe Oto (London), Le Guess Who (Utrecht), LUFF Festival (Lausanne), All Ears Festival (Oslo), Centquatre (Paris), Les Instants Chavirés (Paris), Ausland (Berlin), Edition Festival (Stockholm), Control Club (Bucharest), Brdcst Festival (Brussels), KAII Theater (Brussels), KRAAK Festival (Belgium), Ftarri (Tokyo) and countless DIY basements across the USA. She is a 2025 Fondation Camargo Fellow (Cassis, France), and was a 2022-23 Jerome Foundation artist fellow.