Eric Nathan

Eric Nathan

Fellow: Awarded 2014
Field of Study: Music Composition

Competition: US & Canada

Eric Nathan’s (b. 1983) music has been performed in the United States and abroad at music festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen Music Festival, Ravinia Festival Steans Institute, Aldeburgh Music Festival (UK), World Music Days, Yellow Barn as well as at the Louvre Museum and Carnegie Hall, and featured on NPR’s radio show “From the Top,” WQXR’s Q2 Radio and as part of NPR’s “The Mix: 100 Composers Under 40.”

Nathan is the 2013-14 Frederic A. Juilliard/Walter Damrosch Rome Prize Fellow in composition at the American Academy in Rome. In June 2013, Nathan served as Composer-in-Residence at the Chelsea Music Festival (New York) and at Chamber Music Campania (Italy).

Projects for the 2013-14 season include a New York Philharmonic commission, “As Above, So Below,” for principal trombonist Joseph Alessi to premiere on the CONTACT! series at the Philharmonic’s 2014 Biennial, a new chamber octet, “Missing Words,” for the Berlin Philharmonic’s Scharoun Ensemble, a song cycle for soprano and baritone on texts by Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and two chamber orchestra works to premiere at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and ISCM World Music Days, respectively. Nathan’s music is also featured at the 2014 Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Nuova Consonanza Festival (Rome), Composers Now Festival, and by the JACK Quartet, Momenta Quartet and the Boston-based string orchestra, A Far Cry.

Nathan’s works have been presented by orchestras including the American Composers Orchestra, Omaha Symphony Chamber Orchestra, Aspen Concert Orchestra, Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra (South Korea), and Yale Symphony Orchestra. Chamber ensembles that have featured his work include the Berlin Philharmonic’s Scharoun Ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Collage New Music, Momenta Quartet, and American Modern Ensemble, among others.

Recent commissions include those from the New York Philharmonic, Tanglewood Music Center, Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra, a Jerome Fund for New Music commission for the Momenta Quartet, New York Youth Symphony Chamber Music Program, ASCAP/Society of Composers Inc., Le Train Bleu, Winsor Music, Youth Orchestras of Prince William, Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center at Wellesley College, and Atlantic Coast Conference Band Directors Association.

Nathan’s music has been recognized with the 2013 Rome Prize, ASCAP Foundation Rudolf Nissim Prize, American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Scholarship, Aspen Music Festival’s Jacob Druckman Prize, four ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, BMI William Schuman Prize, ISCM-IAMIC Young Composer Award at the 2012 World Music Days, and First Prize in the ASCAP/SCI National Student Commission Competition. In addition, he has received the Leonard Bernstein Fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Center, League of Composers/ISCM Competition, American Modern Ensemble Composition Competition, selection for the American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings, the Brian M. Israel Prize from the New York Federation of Music Clubs, New York Art Ensemble Young Composer Competition, Dean’s Prize from Indiana University, and the Abraham Beekman Cox and Beekman Cannon Friends of Music Prizes from Yale College.

Nathan received his D.M.A. in composition from Cornell University, an M.M. from Indiana University, and his B.A. from Yale College. He also attended The Juilliard School Pre-College Division. His principal teachers include Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, Claude Baker, Sven-David Sandström and Kathryn Alexander. In addition he has studied as a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival and School, Aldeburgh Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, and Wellesley Composers Conference.

Audio links:

“Multitude, Solitude” for string quartet

“Timbered Bells” for symphonic brass ensemble and percussion

“Walls of Light” for mixed chamber ensemble

“Three by Three” for solo piano

Additional orchestral, chamber and solo works

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