Nina C. Young (born 1984) is an American electro-acoustic composer of contemporary classical music who resides in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. She won the 2015

Rome Prize The Rome Prize is awarded by the American Academy in Rome, in Rome, Italy. Approximately thirty scholars and artists are selected each year to receive a study fellowship at the academy. Prizes have been awarded annually since 1921, with a hiatus ...

in musical composition, a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 2014

Charles Ives Prize The Charles Ives Awards are scholarships for young composers, awarded annually by the American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excel ...

from the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

Biography

Young was born in

Nyack, New York Nyack () is a village located primarily in the town of Orangetown in Rockland County, New York, United States. Incorporated in 1872, it retains a very small western section in Clarkstown. It is a suburb of New York City lying approximately no ...

, and raised throughout

Rockland County Rockland County is the southernmost county on the west side of the Hudson River in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. It is about from the Bronx at their closest points. The county's population, as of t ...

. Her initial music education was self-taught; she began violin at age 12. In 2003 she graduated from

Clarkstown High School North Clarkstown High School North is a high school located in New City, New York, United States, educating students in grades 9 through 12. It is one of two high schools in the Clarkstown Central School District (CCSD). Since 2006, North has offer ...

and then moved to

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

, to study engineering and music at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. In 2007 Young received two degrees from MIT: a B.S. in

ocean engineering Marine engineering is the engineering of boats, ships, submarines, and any other marine vessel. Here it is also taken to include the engineering of other ocean systems and structures – referred to in certain academic and professional circl ...

and a B.S. in music (studying primarily with Keeril Makan). She continued to work as a research assistant to

Tod Machover Tod Machover (born November 24, 1953, in Mount Vernon, New York), is a composer and an innovator in the application of technology in music. He is the son of Wilma Machover, a pianist and Carl Machover, a computer scientist. He was named Direct ...

at the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...

. Young attended McGill University's

Schulich School of Music The Schulich School of Music (also known as Schulich) is one of the constituent faculties of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 555, rue Sherbrooke Ouest (555, Sherbrooke Street West). The faculty was named after benef ...

from 2008 to 2011, receiving a M.Mus. She studied composition with Sean Ferguson, orchestration with Jean Lesage, and mixed music with Philippe Leroux. While in Montreal, Young worked as a research assistant in CIRMMT's (the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology) Expanded Musical Practice Project and as a studio and teaching assistant at the McGill Digital Composition Studios. Young holds a doctorate in music composition from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, where she studied with Brad Garton, Georg Friedrich Haas,

George Lewis George Lewis may refer to: Entertainment and art * George B. W. Lewis (1818–1906), circus rider and theatre manager in Australia * George E. Lewis (born 1952), American composer and free jazz trombonist * George J. Lewis (1903–1995), Mexica ...

, and

Fred Lerdahl Alfred Whitford (Fred) Lerdahl (born March 10, 1943, in Madison, Wisconsin) is the Fritz Reiner Professor Emeritus of Musical Composition at Columbia University, and a composer and music theorist best known for his work on musical grammar and co ...

. At Columbia, she taught electronic music at the Computer Music Center (CMC). Young is an assistant professor at the University of Southern California

Thornton School of Music The USC Thornton School of Music is a private music school in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1884 only four years after the University of Southern California, the Thornton School is the oldest continually operating arts institution in Los An ...

. Young has held residencies at Montalvo Arts Center, the

Civitella Ranieri Foundation The Civitella Ranieri Foundation is an American artists’ community located at a 15th-century castle in the Umbria region of Italy. The Foundation provides four sessions of six-week long unstructured residencies every year to visual artists, ...

, and Arts Letters and Numbers. She previously taught at the

Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music The Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music in the College of Fine Arts is located on the eastern side of The University of Texas at Austin. With over 100 faculty members and more than 750 students, the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music rank ...

at the University of Texas at Austin and in the Arts Department at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She has also been a visiting composer at the Johns Hopkins

Peabody Institute The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University is a private conservatory and preparatory school in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1857 and opened in 1866 by merchant/financier and philanthropist George Peabody (1795–1869) ...

. In addition to her contributions as an educator and composer, Young is a promoter of contemporary music. She served as general manager of the composer collective and publisher APNM (The Association for the Promotion of New Music) from 2011-2015 and is Co-Artistic Director of the new music sinfonietta Ensemble Échappé. Young's music is published by

Peermusic Peermusic is a United States-based independent music publisher. History Ralph Peer, a field recording engineer and A&R representative for Victor Records, went on a scouting trip to Bristol, Tennessee. For two weeks, he recorded artists such a ...

Classical.

Music

Young's compositions explore the intersection of instrumental and electroacoustic music. The

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

has described Young's " John Cage-like boldness in experimentation" and "complex instrumental and electronic soundscapes". WQXR-FM's Q2 named Young one of the "10 Imagination-Grabbing, Trailblazing Artists of 2014" with contributor Brad Balliett writing, "Nina's music is constantly surprising, but at the same time, seems predestined. Every event seems so well-placed and inevitable that one is left with the feeling that the piece could have gone only the way she has it mapped out. Echoes of Stravinsky and something spectral give way to an intensely personal voice cut through with an ear for color and balance."

Selected works

Selected awards and grants

*2021 Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition *2015 Koussevitsky Music Foundation Commission *2015

, The

American Academy in Rome The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo (Janiculum Hill) in Rome. The academy is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. History In 1893, a group of American architects, ...

, Italy *2015 American Composers Forum National Composition Contest, wild Up ensemble commission *2014 Aspen Music Festival Jacob Druckman Prize, orchestral commission *2014 Nouvel Ensemble Moderne's 12th International Forum, Montreal, QC *2014

(Charles Ives Scholarship)

*2014 Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award (''Traced Upon Cinders") *2014

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The orchestra performs primarily at the Bradley Symphony Center in Allen-Bradley Hall. The orchestra also serves as the orchestra for Florentine ...

Composer Institute *2014 Libby Larsen Prize (''Remnants'') from the

International Alliance for Women in Music The International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) is an international membership organization of women and men dedicated to fostering and encouraging the activities of women in music, particularly in the areas of musical activity, such as compos ...

. *2013 American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings (''Remnants'') Audience Choice Award *2011 Pauline Oliveros Prize (''Kolokol'') from the

. *2011 17th International Young Composers Meeting with the Orkest de ereprijs. *2010 BMI Foundation Student Composer Award (''Kolokol'')

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Nina C. 21st-century American composers American women classical composers American classical composers Living people 1984 births MIT School of Engineering alumni McGill University School of Music alumni Columbia University School of the Arts alumni 21st-century American women musicians Classical musicians from New York (state) People from Nyack, New York 21st-century women composers MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni