School of Music > Faculty & Staff > Faculty A-Z > Nomi Epstein

Nomi Epstein

Nomi Epstein
Education
BA 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.