About
Tristan Kasten-Krause is a bassist and composer living in New York City, whose work enlarges the minutiae of close tones and subtle gestures. As a bassist he has been credited with providing his “low-end authority to vital New York institutions” (the New Yorker) like Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Guggenheim and The Whitney Museum, as well as across the globe at LA’s Disney Hall, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and the Ruhrtriennale.
He has performed with many of the top national and international modern music ensembles including The Bang on a Can All-Stars, Talea Ensemble, Wet Ink, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Contemporaneous, and Ensemble Signal.
Over the last decade Tristan has worked with forward-thinking artists such as Sigur Ros, Alvin Lucier, Sarah Hennies, Julia Wolfe, Caroline Shaw, David Lang, Ichico Aoba and Steve Reich. He has performed on Broadway in Gypsy with Audra McDonald (2025), Justin Peck’s Illinoise (2024) and Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma! (2019-2020), and can be heard on television in Netflix’s The Witcher, PBS’s Frontline and Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle.
As a composer, Tristan has been praised for his “heavenly” (the Guardian) original music. His work has been showcased at Issue Project Room, The Stone, The Hudson Basilica, the Cleveland Uncommon Sounds Project, Black Mountain College Museum and the University of Chicago’s Grey Sound series. He has recently been the recipient of the 2024 Copland Fund, and is a 2025 NYSCA grantee. In 2026 his duo with Sarah Hennies premieres their new electroaccoustic work at the Groupe de Reserche Musicale (GRM) in Paris. Their debut album The Quiet Sun was released May 2nd on Dinzu Artifacts to critical acclaim.
He is the bassist for the mictrotonal black metal band Scarcity.
Tristan has worked & performed with Sigur Ros, Caroline Shaw, David Lang, Alvin Lucier, Sarah Hennies, Jessica Pavone, Steve Reich, Ichico Aoba, David First, Henry Threadgil, Denardo Coleman, LEYA, The Arditti Quartet, Howard Shore
He has been featured in Gypsy, llinoise and Oklahoma! on Broadway, on Netflix’s The Witcher, Amazon’s Mozart in The Jungle, at The Moab Music Festival, The Lincoln Center Festival, The Whitney Biennial, The Ruhrtriennale, Hudson Basilica’s 24 Hour Drone Festival, Montreal’s Suoni per il Popolo Festival, Bang on a Can’s Loud Weekend & Long Play Festivals
He has performed with ensembles such as Talea Ensemble, The Bang on a Can All-Stars, Wet Ink, Ensemble Signal, Ensemble Linea, Argento New Music, andPlay, Contemporaneous, Wordless Music Orchestra