Max Gibson

Max Gibson is a British-Irish musician, writer, and educator. At UC Davis, he is pursuing a Ph.D. in music composition and theory, with emphases in science and technology studies, studies in performance and practice, and environmental humanities. With a penchant for variety and a voracious ear, he pursues experiments and explorations in sound driven by curiosity. Drawing on medievalism, architecture, industrialism, astronomy and astrology, and the natural world, his musical interests include expanded time, line and counterpoint, sound massing, the act of listening, and more-than-human creativity. Through interdisciplinary approaches to composition, he also explores how the space of performance and spectatorship can be configured. He is currently creating a multimedia opera entitled O Dear Ocean, a collaboration with the California Coast.

In addition to composing, he is an active scholar working at the nexus of STS, sound studies, experimental music, music and health, and affect theory. He is writing the prose portion of his dissertation on theories of vibration and healing in the practices of Pauline Oliveros and Milford Graves.

In 2026, he was an Ernst Mach Scholar at the Kunstuniversität Graz, where he worked under the guidance of Austrian composer Clemens Gadenstätter. At Davis, he works with Kurt Rohde and Beth Levy and studies harpsichord with Faythe Vollrath. He is grateful to the many musicians, teachers, mentors, and artists who have guided him on his artistic journey.