Nick Brooke (born December 26, 1968) is an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

, musician, arranger,

theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...

ist, instrument builder, and researcher of early musical automata. He was born in

Manchester, New Hampshire Manchester is a city in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. It is the most populous city in New Hampshire. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 115,644. Manchester is, along with Nashua, one of two seats of New Hamp ...

. Brooke mixes musical sampling,

lipsynching Lip sync or lip synch (pronounced , the same as the word ''sink'', short for lip synchronization) is a technical term for matching a speaking or singing person's lip movements with sung or spoken vocals. Audio for lip syncing is generated thr ...

, and theater into an idiosyncratic genre. In many of his works, vocalists and actors are trained to mimic sampled collages of sound effects, pop songs, and musical ephemera, blurring the line between recording and live performance. Brooke’s instrumental works have been performed by the

Paul Dresher Paul Joseph Dresher (born January 8, 1951 in Los Angeles) is an American composer. Dresher received his B.A. in music from the University of California, Berkeley and his M.A. in composition from the University of California, San Diego, where he st ...

Ensemble, the Nash Ensemble of London,

Orchestra 2001 Currently entering its fourth decade, Orchestra 2001 was founded at Swarthmore College, where it was Ensemble-in-Residence for over twenty-five years. In addition to concerts in the Philadelphia area, the ensemble has brought new American music to c ...

, Dan Druckman,

Speculum Musicae Speculum Musicae is an American chamber ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. It was founded in New York City in 1971 and is particularly noted for its performances of the music of Elliott Carter and Charles Wuo ...

, and New York’s

Gamelan Son of Lion Gamelan Son of Lion (GSOL) is a new-music American gamelan ensemble based in New York City. The group was founded in 1976 by Barbara Benary (who constructed most of the instruments), Philip Corner, and Daniel Goode. It is a composers' collective ...

. During a two-year fellowship in

Central Java Central Java ( id, Jawa Tengah) is a province of Indonesia, located in the middle of the island of Java. Its administrative capital is Semarang. It is bordered by West Java in the west, the Indian Ocean and the Special Region of Yogyakarta in t ...

, Brooke studied

gamelan Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...

and collaborated on musical projects with Javanese composers, dancers, and visual artists. His work ''Tone Test'' received its premiere at the

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...

Festival in 2004. Previews on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

and in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' documented its innovative aesthetic. His 2013 album,
Border Towns
' (

Innova Recordings Innova Recordings is the independent record label of the non-profit American Composers Forum based in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was founded in 1982 to document the winners of the McKnight Fellowship offered by its parent organization, the Minneso ...

), was inspired by Mexican " border blasters," high-powered radio stations that encroached on U.S. broadcast airspace during the 1950s. Brooke holds degrees in music composition and philosophy from

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

, and a

Ph.D A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

from

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

. He teaches at

Bennington College Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...

External links

Official web site
* Nick Brooke's ''Tone Test'' a

* Nick Brooke profile a
Continuum Contemporary Music

"Nick Brooke: The Artful Appropriator"
at New Music Box, October 15, 2004

theatrical production, ''New York Times'', September 15, 2010

''New York Times'', September 8, 2002 {{DEFAULTSORT:Brooke, Nick American male composers 21st-century American composers People from Manchester, New Hampshire Living people 1968 births Bennington College faculty Oberlin College alumni 21st-century American male musicians