Amirtha Kidambi "takes a holistic approach to singing, which can mean treating every element as unfixed: Words can be opened up, rendered nonspecific. Melody can be repeated and frozen and stuck in place. Markings of rhythm can become utterly abstract, freed from cadence." (New York Times).

Amirtha Kidambi is invested in the creation and performance of subversive, anti-hegemonic music, from free improvisation and avant-jazz, to Indian carnatic and devotional, experimental bands, electronic music, noise and new music. She is an educator, activist and organizer working to challenge systems of white supremacist, colonial, capitalist, patriarchy, and is co-founder and co-organizer of South Asian Artists in Diaspora and Musicians Against Police Brutality. As a bandleader and composer, she is the creative force behind the incendiary protest group Elder Ones and has received critical praise for her albums Holy Science (2016) and From Untruth (2019) on Northern Spy records from the New York Times, Pitchfork, Wire Magazine and Downbeat among others, topping Critics Poll in the categories of "Rising Star Vocalist", "Rising Star Composer" and "Rising Star Jazz Group". Their forthcoming third record New Monuments will be released in 2024 on We Jazz (EU). Kidambi is active in several improvising duos with bassist Luke Stewart, guitarist Matteo Liberatore, meimei (மெய்மெய்) with pianist Ananya Ganesh and Neti-Neti, with percussionist Matt Evans.

She is a key collaborator in MacArthur “genius” Mary Halvorson's sextet Code Girl, the duo Angels & Demons with saxophonist Darius Jones based on the poetry of Sun Ra, and in various collaborations with bassist William Parker and with late elders Muhal Richard Abrams and Robert Ashley. She has performed and presented her music in the U.S. and internationally at Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, The Kitchen, Whitney Museum, MoMA PS1, Berlin Jazzfest (Germany), Skaņu Mežs (Latvia), Out Fest (Portugal), Big Ears Festival and various DIY and punk spaces. Kidambi has received grants and commissions from NYFA, Jerome Foundation, Jazz Coalition, Dither Ensemble, Asian Cultural Council, Mid-Atlantic Arts and artist residencies at EMPAC, Roulette, Pioneer Works, and Bucareli 69 in Mexico City. Kidambi is also the composer for the films of Suneil Sanzgiri, scoring his two-channel film exhibition currently on view at Brooklyn Museum, on the Goan and Angolan liberation struggles.

Her debut as a bandleader was met with critical acclaim. As Ben Ratliff wrote in the New York Times, “the aggressive and sublime first album by the band Elder Ones, Holy Science, is a kind of gauge for how strong and flexible the scene of young musicians in New York’s improvised and experimental music world can be. At the center of it are drones and phonemes. The group’s leader, the composer and singer Amirtha Kidambi, holds forth behind a harmonium, the small keyboard instrument with hand-pumped bellows; it’s commonly used in bhajan, the Indian devotional-singing tradition that was central to her musical experience while growing up in a South Indian family.” Kidambi formally trained in classical music, singing works by experimental composers including Robert Ashley and Luigi Nono, but the pull of free jazz and Alice Coltrane drew her toward a different path. The influence of both Alice and John Coltrane is especially apparent, as is her work with composer and saxophonist Darius Jones, and her study of Carnatic music.

As a performer and improviser, Kidambi has premiered works by pioneering composers including AACM founder and pianist Muhal Richard Abrams’, premiering his Dialogue Social Roulette in 2013, Robert Ashley’s CRASH at the Whitney Biennial in 2013, Darius Jones’ The Oversoul Manual at Carnegie Hall in 2014, electronic composer Ben Vida’s work Slipping Control for voice and electronics with Tyondai Braxton at the Borderline Festival in Athens, Greece in 2014 and William Parker’s Soul of Light in 2017. Recent recordings include William Parker’s Voices Fall From the Sky (2018), the debut recording of Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl (2018) and Ingrid Laubrock’s Contemporary Chaos Practices (2018). She has worked with several of New York’s luminary improvisers including Matana Roberts, Ingrid Laubrock, Tyshawn Sorey, Hamid Drake, Nick Dunston, Maria Grand, Ava Mendoza, Shahzad Ismaily, Trevor Dunn and many others.

Amirtha earned degrees from Loyola Marymount, Brooklyn College and Columbia University in performance, musicology and ethnomusicology and has served as faculty at Brooklyn College, Bennington College and The New School, where she engages in interdisciplinary and decolonizing work.