Biography

Background

[Nissim on a train] Nissim Schaul is a composer of music for classical instruments, and the occasional radio or film project. He has two divergent impulses as a composer – one is towards the austere beauty of sound itself, but he’s too interested in the expressive power of music to abandon the hallmarks of big Romanticism altogether. These days, he's trying to reconcile these two impulses, to write music that luxuriates in the sounds of the instruments, but that also retains those traditional hooks. Put another way, he’s looking for the intersection of still space and grand gestures.

Currently living in Paris, Nissim grew up in Raleigh, NC and has spent most of his adult life in New York City. His work has been heard throughout the region, including at Symphony Space’s Thalia Theatre, Tenri Cultural Institute, and on the 2006 installment of the Emerson String Quartet's annual chamber music festival in Stony Brook, NY. Recently, his recorder quartet, Everybody’s Going There, was performed by QNG–Quartet New Generation in Reno, Nevada (at the Nightingale Concert Hall), and in June, Nissim made his Croatian and Slovenian debuts, with the performance of the first part of Rising (for 3-part chorus and any instrument(s) available) as part of street theater performances in Grožnjan, Croatia and Izola, Slovenia. Nissim’s music has also appeared on public radio's Studio 360. Upcoming projects include a piece for Nissim's hometown youth orchestra, Raleigh, North Carolina's Triangle Youth Philharmonic; a piece for saxophone ensemble and electronics for a sax festival in Aubervilliers, France; and another piece for Flying Forms, but this time, the Baroque instruments will be amplified.

Nissim received his BA from Columbia University (with honors in music) and his Master's in Composition from SUNY-Stony Brook. His past teachers include J. Mark Stambaugh, Dan Weymouth, Sheila Silver, Jonathan Kramer, Sebastian Currier, and Marco Stroppa. He is currently studying composition with Allain Gaussin in the Parisian suburbs, and other musical skills at the Conservatory of La Courneuve / Aubervilliers. He is also picking up Gregorian chant, just for fun.

Nissim is affiliated with ASCAP and a member of the American Composers Forum. He has received academic scholarships from Columbia, Stony Brook, and the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, which he attended for the 2003 session. His music has been supported by SUNY-Stony Brook and the New York State Music Fund.