EducationBA Columbia University
MM New England Conservatory
DM Northwestern University
Courses Taught
Aural Training
About
Nomi Epstein is active as a composer, curator/performer of
experimental music and music educator. Past commissions have come from
the Chicago Symphony Orchestra cellist, Katinka Kleijn, the internationally renowned
guitarist, Seth Josel, The Old Town School, Noble Fowl Trio, Wild Rumpus
Ensemble, Ensemble Décadanse, the New England Conservatory Percussion
Ensemble, David Kalhous, Steven Lin and the Roosevelt University
Percussion Ensemble.
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.
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. Epstein is a five-time ASCAPLUS winner, and a two-time CAP Grant
winner (American Composers Forum).
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. She was an invited lecturer at the 2011 Black Mountain
College John Cage Conference, and in 2012 she produced/curated a five-concert John Cage centennial festival in Chicago. She continues to
perform experimental music with the Chicago Scratch Orchestra, and
Haptic at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, WNUR live broadcasts and the Green Mill, while her experimental trio, NbN, has been invited
to be artist-in-residence at Chicago’s High Concept Laboratories in fall
2012.
As an educator, she has been on the faculty of the University of
Illinois at Chicago, Northwestern University and Roosevelt University. She is currently head of theory at the British School, instructor of
theory, aural skills, and composition at DePaul and a piano teacher
both privately and at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Epstein holds a
bachelor's degree from Barnard College, Columbia University, a master's
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.