Nathan Davis, percussion

Percussionist and composer Nathan Davis "writes music that deals deftly and poetically with timbre and sonority" (NYTimes). He has premiered hundreds of works by luminaries and by emerging composers, and has appeared as a concerto soloist on hammered dulcimer with the Seattle Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, and Nagoya Philharmonic. The BAM Next Wave Festival and American Opera Projects presented the world premiere of Davis’s “Hagoromo”, a chamber dance-opera featuring the International Contemporary Ensemble, soloists Katalin Karolyi and Peter Tantsits, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and featuring dancers Wendy Whelan and Jock Soto. Lincoln Center presented the premiere of “Bells” and other works written for ICEensemble. He has also received commissions from Donaueschinger Musiktage, GMEM and Ensemble CBarré, Claire Chase, Steven Schick, Miller Theatre, the Calder Quartet, Third Coast Percussion, and Yarn/Wire, with premieres at Tanglewood, Park Avenue Armory, and Carnegie Hall. The 2018 Aaron Copland Fellow at the Bogliasco Foundation, Davis received awards from Camargo, PEW, Fromm, and Jerome Foundations, MATA, and ASCAP. Recordings of his music include “On the Nature of Thingness” on Starkland, and others on New Focus, and Bridge, and he can be heard as a percussionist on dozens of albums. Davis holds degrees in composition and in percussion from Rice, Yale, and the Rotterdams Conservatorium on a Fulbright Fellowship.He taught percussion at Dartmouth College for eight years and currently teaches composition and electronic music at The New School.