The Gledhill Arts Collective Presents:
Composer, Nina Young
New York-based composer Nina C. Young (b.1984) writes music characterized by an acute sensitivity to tone color, manifested in aural images of vibrant, arresting immediacy. Her experience in the electronic music studio informs her acoustic work, which takes as its given not melody and harmony, but sound itself, continuously metamorphosing from one state to another.
Young's music has garnered international acclaim through performances by the American Composers Orchestra, Inscape Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Orkest de ereprijs, Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, Divertimento Ensemble, Either/Or, the JACK Quartet, mise-en, Scharoun, Sixtrum, and Yarn/Wire. Winner of the 2015-16 Rome Prize in Musical Composition, Young has received a Koussevitzky Commission from the Library of Congress, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Award, Aspen Music Festival's Jacob Druckman Prize, and honors from BMI, The International Alliance for Women in Music, and ASCAP/SEAMUS. Young has held fellowship residencies at the Aspen and Atlantic Music Festivals, the Nouvel Ensemble Modern's 2014 FORUM, and the Tanglewood Music Center.
Recent commissions include a bassoon pocket concerto for Brad Balliett and the Metropolis Ensemble, Agnosco Veteris for Robert Spano and the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, When Eyes Meet for wild Up with support of the American Composer Forum’s National Composition Competition, EarPlay – a viola concerto for Jocelin Pan and Ensemble Échappé, as well as new works for the American Brass Quintet, cellist Anssi Karttunen, and pianist Marilyn Nonken.
Young’s interests are now headed in the direction of collaborative, multidisciplinary works. While in Rome, Young worked with choreographer Miro Magloire and the New Chamber Ballet to develop a site-specific piece, Temenos, around the intersection of movement, architecture, and sound at the Tempietto Del Bramante. In September she designed a soundscape and interactive performance in Morningside Park for the Processional Arts Workshops 2016 Morningside Lights: TRAVERSE, presented by Miller Theatre. Young recently collaborated with performance artist and women’s rights activist Erin Helfert for a presentation (Federal Hall) of RITE OF PASSAGE - a performance, with 8-channel interactive audio, about Helfert’s 5-year rape trial in Moroccan Court. In May 2017 the American Composers Orchestra Underground will premiere Out of whose womb came the ice (commissioned by the Jerome Foundation) – a work for baritone, orchestra, electronics, and generative video commenting on the ill-fated Ernest Shackleton Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-17. Young is collaborating with vocal bassist Andrew Munn and the Nouveau Classical Project on an evening-length, interdisciplinary cantata titled Making Tellus: Sketches of a Cosmogram for the Anthropocene – a work for voices, mixed chamber ensemble, sustainable fashion, and interactive media that addresses the current socio-political conversation surrounding human intervention and the Earth’s rapidly changing geology.
Young completed her doctorate at Columbia University, with Fred Lerdahl, George Lewis, Georg Friedrich Haas, and Brad Garton, where she was an active participant at the Columbia Computer Music Center. In 2011 she earned a Master's degree in music composition from McGill University. While in Montreal she worked as a research assistant at the Centre for Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT) and as a studio and teaching assistant at the McGill Digital Composition Studios. Nina completed her undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) receiving degrees in ocean engineering and music, in addition to holding a research assistantship at the MIT Media Lab.
This fall Young joined Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) as Assistant Professor in the Department of Arts. She currently serves as Co-Artistic Director of NY-based new music sinfonietta Ensemble Échappé. Her music is published by Peermusic Classical.