Full Bio
Conductor / composer Nicholas DeMaison is Director of Ensemble Sospeso NYC, an ensemble of soloists producing concerts of contemporary music at the highest standard, giving performances described as “stunning” (New York Times), “a wonder to watch” (Wall Street Journal) and “gorgeously rich” (Village Voice). He is also the Music Supervisor for critically acclaimed production company Giants Are Small, currently developing a new “live-animation” performance of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Since 2008, he has been Director of Florilegium Chamber Choir and was the founding Music Director of Opera Cabal, the Chicago-based ensemble for new opera, called Chicago’s “most daring” opera company (Chicago Magazine) and of which Time Out Chicago declared, “A thrilling contrast to Lyric Opera and Chicago Opera Theater…Opera Cabal exhibits the audacity and daredevilry rarely found in anything calling itself ‘opera’ these days.”
A respected interpreter of contemporary music, Mr. DeMaison actively commissions new pieces from the most unique artistic voices working today. He has conducted premieres and led recording projects of new works by over forty living composers, including most recently Lewis Nielson’s multi-media opera, USW, directed by Habib Azar. He has been invited to conduct at the 2010 International Ensemble Modern Academy/Klangspuren Festival (Schwaz, Austria), the 2008 Darmstadt Summer Course for New Music (Darmstadt, Germany) and the Lucerne Festival Academy “Stockhausen Gruppen Project” in 2007. Mr. DeMaison has assisted and performed alongside such luminaries as Lucas Vis, Pierre Boulez and Peter Eötvös.
Also an active composer, DeMaison was named Composer in Residence at High Concept Laboratories (Chicago, IL) in 2009 and returns to HCL in 2011 to continue work on his second opera, begun during a residency with Melodious Accord. His music has been described as “crossing the threshold from being abstractly academic to emotionally provocative,” (Time Out NY) and “faster and blippier…smooth-versus-screechy…both ominous and playful at the same time.” (Lucid Culture). His work spans from chamber works with live electronic audio and video components to works for chorus and orchestra. Ensembles that have performed DeMaison’s music include The New York Philharmonic, Giants Are Small, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, Del Sol String Quartet, ensemble dal niente, UCSD New Music Ensemble, Hunter College Campus School Orchestra, South Hadley Chorale and Opera Cabal. He is the recipient of a Weill Fellowship from UC San Diego and grants from Fractured Atlas, American Composers Forum, Melodious Accord, and the Harry and Alice Eiler Foundation.
Also a passionate educator, Mr. DeMaison has served on the composition and conducting faculty of the Walden School in Dublin, NH since 2004. In 2008 and 2009, he was a Teaching Artist with Orchestra of St. Luke’s Young Composers Project, guiding classes of New York City public school students through the process of creating and recording their own music. In 2008 he was awarded a Teaching Excellence award from UC San Diego for his work in undergraduate ear training.
Mr. DeMaison is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory, where he was awarded the Grand Prize in Composition, and is currently a PhD candidate in Composition at UC San Diego, where he studies with Philippe Manoury. His past composition teachers include Chaya Czernowin and Richard Hoffmann. He has studied conducting with Franck Ollu, Lucas Vis, Peter Eötvös, Gustav Meier, Carl St. Clair, Vance George, Alice Parker, Lewis Nielson and Paul Polivnick.
updated Aug.2011
