Nathan Davis

Nathan Davis is an activist for new music as a composer and percussionist. He is a cofounder of Odd Appetite, performing at Carnegie Hall and in the Bang on a Can marathon. He also cofounded the mixed sextet Non Sequitur and is a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble. Concert and festival engagements have brought him to Russia, Turkey, Cuba, Bali (with Gamelan Galak-Tika), and on tours of Europe and the U.S. He has worked in collaboration with other composers such as Christian Wolff, Evan Ziporyn, Lee Hyla and Larry Polansky, preparing chamber works for performance and recording on Tzadik, Cold Blue, New Albion, Centaur, Bridge, and Karnatic Lab Records.

Nathan’s music has been performed in the US, the Netherlands, Canada, and at the Festival de la Musica Electroacoustica in Cuba, and aboard the trans-Siberian railroad. Several of his microphone pieces (works for ordinary acoustic instruments amplified with handheld microphones and processed by computer) have recently been released on a solo cd, Memory Spaces. These “works unveil and magnify the often overlooked sensual complexities of simple acoustic phenomena” (Lou Mallozzi, ESS). Among them, Diving Bell was a winner of the 2003 ISCM Composers Competition, and Crawlspace is featured on NPR’s Art of the States, heard worldwide. Nathan has received two grants from the Meet the Composer Fund, including a commission to write and perform a program of his pieces for percussion and electronics at the 2002 Outer Ear Festival in Chicago. His acoustic music is published by Frog Peak.

A dedicated instructor and chamber coach, Nathan taught percussion and led ensembles at Dartmouth College from 1999-2004, and he has given masterclasses on extended percussion techniques, theater, and electronics at Yale University, the Longy School of Music, and UMass Amherst. He has been an artist in residence at Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Brandeis, and the Walden School for Young Composers.

Nathan earned Bachelors degrees in both composition and percussion at Rice University. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study with Robert Van Sice at the Rotterdams Conservatorium in Holland, receiving an Artist diploma in marimba performance, and subsequently he received a Masters in Music from Yale University.