Anika Liv
Christensen

Anika Liv Christensen is a composer, mezzo soprano, and flutist. Born and raised a fourth generation resident of rural Appalachian New York, she blends avant-garde classical techniques with the bluegrass themes and motifs she grew up around. Her music explores themes of nature, conservation, self-reflection, and relationships in the age of technocracy. She was the 2025 winner of Harvard University's Hugh F. MacColl Prize for excellence in undergraduate composition.

Her passions extend beyond music to biology, ecology, and public health, and she aspires to a career in pandemic-prevention epidemiology as well as composition. She will graduate from Harvard University in May with a bachelor's degree in Music and Human Evolutionary Biology. A Fulbright awardee, she plans to move to Leipzig, Germany in the fall to investigate how climate may have played a role in the origin of the plague at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.