Nina Young
composer

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, Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Orkest de ereprijs, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, Either/Or, the JACK Quartet, mise-en, the Nouveau Classical Project, Sixtrum, wild Up, and Yarn/Wire. Winner of the 2015-16 Rome Prize in Musical Composition, Young has also received 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, IAWM, and ASCAP/SEAMUS. Her orchestral work Remnants received the Audience Choice Award at the ACO's 2013 Underwood New Music Readings. Young has held fellowship residencies at the Aspen and Atlantic Festivals, 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, a mixed chamber piece for wild Up with support of the ACF National Composition Competition, as well as new works for the American Brass Quintet and pianist Marilyn Nonken. Young is collaborating with vocal bassist Andrew Munn and the Nouveau Classical Project on an evening-length, cross-disciplinary cantata titled Making Tellus: Sketches of a Cosmogram for the Anthropocene – a work for voices, mixed chamber ensemble, and interactive media that addresses the current socio-political conversation surrounding the Earth’s rapidly changing geology.

Young is completing her doctorate at Columbia University with Fred Lerdahl, George Lewis, Georg Friedrich Haas, and Brad Garton. She is an active participant at the Columbia Computer Music Center where she teaches electronic music. 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 assistanship at the MIT Media Lab under the direction of Tod Machover.

In addition to concert music Nina composes music for theatre, dance, and film. She also works as a concert organizer and promoter of new music; Nina currently serves as General Manager for the publisher APNM (Association for the Promotion of New Music) and as Co-Artistic Director of Ensemble Échappé.