Alumna Nina C. Young (DMA, Composition 2016) has recently been announced as the Assistant Professor of Composition and Director of the Electronic Music Studios at the Butler School of Music at The University of Texas at Austin. Her contract will begin with the 2018-2019 academic year.
The New York-based composer has garnered international acclaim through performances by the American Composers Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the JACK Quartet, the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, and many others. Young is winner of the 2015-16 Rome Prize in Musical Composition, and has received a Koussevitzky Commission from the Library of Congress, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Award.
Mary Ellen Poole, Director of the Butler School of Music, says “A composition student commented that Dr. Young brought ‘a wide explosion of creative ideas’ to our campus. Another called her ‘courageous’ in her clear-eyed attention to social issues through the lens of multiple disciplines and multiple media. Faculty and students alike are already imagining new projects they will undertake with her encouragement and support. We can’t wait for her to arrive in Austin.”
Young’s current interests are collaborative, multidisciplinary works. In Rome, she worked with choreographer Miro Magloire and the New Chamber Ballet to develop a site-specific piece, Temenos, around the intersection of movement, architecture, and sound at the Tempietto Del Bramante. In 2017, the American Composers Orchestra Underground premiered Out of whose womb came the ice, commissioned by the Jerome Foundation—a work for baritone, orchestra, electronics, and generative video commenting on the ill-fated Ernest Shackleton Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-17. Other collaborations touch on issues of sustainability, climate change, historical narratives, and women’s rights.
Young is currently Assistant Professor in the Arts Department of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Visiting Composer at the Peabody Institute. Additionally, she is Co-Artistic Director of the New York-based new music sinfonietta Ensemble Échappé. Her music is published by Peermusic Classical. More information can be found at www.ninacyoung.com
