NOMI EPSTEIN

Nomi Epstein is active as a composer, curator/performer of experimental music, and music educator. Past commissions have come from the CSO cellist, Katinka Kleijn, the internationally renowned guitarist, Seth Josel, The Old Town School, Noble Fowl Trio, Ensemble Décadanse, the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble, David Kalhous, Steven Lin, and the Roosevelt University Percussion Ensemble.  In addition to participating in several international composers festivals, which included performances at Ostrava Days, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and Bang on a Can, she has attended Stuttgart’s Akademie Schloss Solitude summer residency, and has been twice invited as an Artist in Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.  Contributing works to Australian flutist Janet McKay’s 2009 US tour “Those Vanished Hands,” guitarist Aaron Larget Caplan’s “New Lullaby Project” and percussionist Joe Bergen’s new works for vibraphone collection “For Semy,” her compositions have been performed throughout the US and Europe by such ensembles as ICE, Ensemble SurPlus, Wet Ink, and Dal Niente.

Epstein was an invited lecturer at the 2011 Black Mountain College John Cage Conference, and upcoming activities include a new commission by Wild Rumpus, and a premiere by Wet Ink ensemble.  She continues to perform experimental music with the Chicago Scratch Orchestra, and Haptic at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, WNUR live broadcasts, the Green Mill, and Elastic Arts Foundation.  As a recent winner of the Old Town School commissioning project, she will present her “Human Sound Sculpture” in January 2012.

Epstein is founder/ curator of the Chicago-based experimental music concert series “a.pe.ri.od.ic”, listed as “Best of Chicago 2011” in The Chicago Reader, and has lectured as adjunct faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Northwestern University, and Roosevelt University.  She is currently head of theory at the British School, instructor of theory and composition at the DePaul Community Music Division, and a piano teacher both privately and at the Old Town School of Folk Music.  Epstein holds a bachelors degree from Barnard College, Columbia University, a masters in music from New England Conservatory and a Doctor of Music from Northwestern University where her principal teachers have included Fred Lerdahl, Michael Gandolfi, Marti Epstein, Amy Williams, Jay Alan Yim, and Augusta Read Thomas.