Interdisciplinary flutist/composer Tessa Brinckman has been praised for her “chameleon-like gifts and virtuoso elegance” (Gramophone), an “excellent flutist” (Willamette Week) who “play(s) her instrument with great beauty and eloquence” (Music Matters New Zealand), and as “an adroit creator of sound worlds” (Fanfare). Originally from Aotearoa/New Zealand, she has premiered and commissioned hundreds of new works, with many prominent classical music ensembles, concert series, musicians and composers across the globe. Now based in New York City since 2022, she enjoys creating and performing works that honor synesthesia, dialect, and collaboration, often in surrealist ways.

She has performed as an orchestral, chamber, soloist and resident artist, including the Oregon Symphony, the Atlantic Center for the Arts (FL), Waikato and Canterbury Universities (New Zealand), Festival of New American Music (CA), CCRMA (Stanford, CA), National Flute Association, Goodman Theater (Chicago), Britt Festival Orchestra (OR), Wuzhen Theatre Festival (China), Poisson Rouge, Roulette and Sound of Silent Film Festival, Princeton Sound Kitchen, and Livewire Festival (Baltimore). Her latest acclaimed album, Take Wing, Roll Back (New Focus Recordings (2024) embodies her personal and artistic connections to New Zealand, USA, South Africa and France. Recent international collaborations include Aeon, an album tribute to seminal Aotearoa composer, Martin Lodge, and with Mexico’s Duo Duplum at the Cervantino Festival, Guanajuato and the Manuel Enríquez International Forum of New Music, Mexico City.

Tessa is the founding director and flutist for WildLine, a project-based new music chamber ensemble based in the wilds of northern Manhattan, that launched their interdisciplinary concert series in 2026. Playing flute, piccolo, alto, bass, contrabass and baroque flutes, and miscellaneous keyboards, Tessa is also co-founder and co-director of the bi-coastal duo Caballito Negro, with percussionist Terry Longshore, commissioning and recording significant new work for flute and percussion since 2008,  most recently from Juri Seo and Baljinder Sekhon.

Her composition team for Tony Award-winning director Mary Zimmerman’s White Snake was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award (2014) during its 3 year tour. Her experimental video (with Jane Rigler), Women in Parallel Empires (2021), exploring the moon, extraction, and “Empire”, and the animation The Gorgon Cycles (2023) (created with Miles Inada and Devyn McConachie) depicting Medusa’s rise in the Anthropocene, have won 22 film festival awards for music scoring, animation and experimental film, and have been broadcasted in NYC and Europe. 

Recent score commissions include an orchestral work for Unbound Symphony in collaboration with composer Sarah Bassingthwaighte, and solo and chamber works for maverick contemporary flutists, Lisa Cella and Lisa Bost. Recent supporting grants include The Puffin Foundation, New York Women Composers, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Chamber Music America. She has served on the music faculties of institutions such as Southern Oregon University, also teaching workshops and masterclasses that address flute culture, music-making and artist activism.