Biography

Louis Dhoore (b. 2002) is a Mexican-American composer, performer, and pedagogue currently based in Columbus, Ohio. Recently, Louis graduated with their M.M. in composition from DePaul University (2025), where they studied with Osnat Netzer and Christopher Wendell Jones. Prior to that, they received their B.M. in composition from St. Olaf College (2023), where they studied with Justin Merritt, Timothy Mahr, and Mary Ellen Childs. Other composers that they have been fortunate to study with include Nick DiBerardino, David Liptak, Joshua Marquez, Wang Jie, Zae Munn, Jennifer Jolley, Andrea Reinkenmeyer, Anthony Green, and Matthew Peterson. Currently, they are an instructor of violin, viola, voice, and piano at Chambers Music Studio in Bexley, Ohio and the director of orchestras at the Columbus Montessori Education Center. A violinist, violist, gambist, and bass-baritone, Louis is proficient in a wide breadth of Western classical music and is extremely passionate about helping others find what they enjoy in this tradition.

Louis has had works performed and directed by many acclaimed musicians over the span of their career. Among the most notable were the Mivos Quartet (MOTH CHANTS, 2025), Hub New Music (Orodemniades, 2023), DECODA member Moran Katz and soloist Drew Petersen (Moiré, 2024), Ensemble Dal Niente conductor Michael Lewanski (SANDMAN, 2025), and Dal Niente soprano Amanda DeBoer Bartlett and percussionist Kyle Flens in collaboration with internationally-active cellist Isidora Nojkovic (Purple Anenomes, 2024). Their background in composition leads Louis to a theory and aural skills-based approach in early pedagogy, as they consider it to be important that a student has the language to communicate their musical ideas in an ensemble context regardless of instrument or genre.

They draw inspiration from themes of divinity and antiquity to create immersive and theatrical soundscapes. In April of 2023, Louis presented a recital of works based exclusively in Gnostic themes and mythology, ranging from the spiritual to the visceral. During that same term, they collaborated with the St. Olaf Chamber Singers to write a ‘secular motet’, using Walt Whitman’s Kosmos as the text.

In 2022, they were commissioned by the St. Olaf Band to write a piece about how their identity intersected with some aspect of social justice. They chose to write Prayer of the Faithless, where they reconciled their atheism with a longing for a sense of community. During the commission process, Louis worked closely with professor emeritus Dr. Timothy Mahr to create a work that aligned with the band’s social and pedagogical needs.

As a founding member of the nationally-recognized Høyde String Quartet, Louis has had the opportunity to work with several chamber musicians of the highest caliber, including the Catalyst, St. Lawrence, Jasper, and Artaria String Quartets. While in the ensemble, Louis has been a finalist in both the St. Paul String Quartet Competition, where they won the Audience Prize, and the Seattle-based Frances Walton Competition.

2021 held several commissions and major performances for Louis, including a piece deemed “impossible for human musicians to play” released with the Twin Cities-based Corrector Records, a close collaboration with the SYNERGY Musician’s Collective, and a partnership with the Spiritus Novus ensemble.

In 2020, Louis was a pioneering participant of the virtual zFestival – an entirely online contemporary music festival in which a composer would be paired with a group of instrumentalists for extensive collaboration. Their work bloom[decay] was premiered that summer by oboist Pablo O’Connell, violinist Shannon Reilly, and bassist Will Yager. 

In undergraduate study, Louis held several leadership positions. While serving as principal violist of the St. Olaf Orchestra, they experienced the opportunity to work and collaborate alongside the ex-concertmaster of the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra Terje Tønnesen. Louis performed the romping viola solo of Edvard Grieg’s Holberg Suite in duet with him, in addition to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony adaptation of his eighth string quartet completely from memory. They also performed a number of works as the principal gambist of St. Olaf’s Collegium Musicum, and continues to practice both historically-informed performance and contemporary practice as a violinist and violist.

In their free time, Louis can be found refining lore for their homebrewed Dungeons & Dragons setting and cooking overly elaborate meals from scratch!

Their name is pronounced /ˈluːɪs ˈdɔːri/.