Nina C. Young

Composer and sonic artist Nina C. Young (b.1984) creates works, ranging from acoustic concert pieces to interactive installations, that explore aural architectures, resonance, timbre, and the ephemeral. Her music has garnered international acclaim through performances by the American Composers Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Phoenix Symphony, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Aizuri Quartet, Sixtrum, Matt Haimovitz, and others. Winner of the 2015-16 Rome Prize and a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship, Young has received recognition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Koussevitzky Foundation, Civitella Ranieri, the Fromm Foundation, the Montalvo Arts Center, and BMI.

Young’s current interests are collaborative, multidisciplinary works that touch on issues of sustainability, historical narratives, experiences with contemporary technologies, and women’s rights. In 2023, the ACO with vocalist Sidney Outlaw premiered the Carnegie Hall commissioned work Out of whose womb came the ice: a monodrama for baritone, orchestra, electronics, and generative video, commenting on the ill-fated Ernest Shackleton Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Other recent projects include Tread softly for the NY Philharmonic’s Project 19 series, Violin Concerto: Traces for Jennifer Koh co-commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra and LACO, to hear the things we cannot see for Hub New Music featuring the poetry of Rosie Stockton, and Nothing is not borrowed, in song and shattered light - an immersive audio-visual installation experience commissioned by the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer that showcases their High-Resolution Wave Field Synthesis Loudspeaker Array and recordings by the American Brass Quintet. Upcoming projects include new works for the Grossman Ensemble and Decoda.

A graduate of MIT and McGill University, Young completed her DMA at Columbia University. She is faculty of the Juilliard School and is the Slee Visiting Associate Professor in Music Composition at the University at Buffalo. Her music is published by Peermusic Classical.