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one of the contemporary guitar's most
gifted stars -CLASSICAL GUITAR astounding musicianship...Nicolella is
a virtuosic wonder -(SAN FRANCISCO) BAY AREA
EXAMINER
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With a repertoire spanning from J.S. Bach to Jimi Hendrix, Michael Nicolella is recognized as one of America's most innovative classical guitar virtuosos. He has received wide critical acclaim for his performances, recordings and compositions. As a concert artist, Michael has performed throughout North America and Europe as solo recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestra. A uniquely eclectic and versatile artist, Michael blurs the lines between musical styles and disciplines. He is part of a growing trend in classical music to revitalize the role of the composer/performer. As a concert artist he frequently programs his own works for guitar in solo recital and chamber music settings. Known for his creative programming, he has introduced electric guitar into his "classical" programs and extended the repertoire and audience of his instrument not only with his own compositions and transcriptions, but also by premiering and commissioning works by some of today's most exciting emerging composers. In the last five years alone, he has premiered over a dozen new works for classical and electric guitar in solo, chamber and orchestral settings. In reference to his abilities on the classical and electric guitar, noted guitar composer, scholar and critic John Duarte stated in a recent issue of "Gramophone" magazine that:"Others have 'crossed the track' in one direction or the other but none has done so with the technical and/or musical success as Nicolella, who,chameleon-like, achieves comparable distinction in both fields". Most recently, Nicolella 's new work for electric guitar and orchestra commissioned by 4Culture entitled "Ten Years Passed"was premiered by the Northwest Symphony Orchestra with Nicolella as soloist. Michael has performed with the Seattle Symphony, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Seattle Creative Orchestra, Ensemble Sospeso, Seattle Guitar Quartet, Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Seattle Choral Company, and the Northwest Symphony Orchestra. His newest CD Shard was released in May 2005. The recording features his composition for classical guitar and orchestra, Guitar Concerto performed with the Northwest Symphony Orchestra led by conductor Anthony Spain, along with music of Reich, Carter, ter Veldhuis, DeLaurenti, Mesler and Kohl. The album was described in Frets magazine as "an exciting textbook on how to honor classical tradition and kick it in the ass at the same time." It is the stylistic follow up to Nicolella's critically acclaimed 2000 CD release of contemporary music for classical and electric guitar entitled Push. In Gramophone John Duarte called the CD "a display of stunning technical skill and unfailing musicality over a very broad spectrum" while Classical Guitar magazine described the disc as "remarkable... breathtaking... superb" and characterized Nicolella as "a fully enlightened musician of our time." Composer John Fitz Rogers's epic, Transit, for electric guitar and computer-driven virtual ensemble, with Nicolella as soloist, was released on CD in April 2002 reaching into the top 10 best-selling classical CDs on Amazon.com. Following Transit's first New York performance, New York Times classical music critic Anne Midgette declared Transit "an impassioned, intense manifesto that used the guitar and a wide palette of electronic sounds to comment on, it seemed, the whole of music history... expertly played by Michael Nicolella." As a performer and composer, Michael has received awards, grants, commissions and fellowships from ASCAP, the American Composers Forum, 4Culture, Wisconsin Arts Board, Washington State Arts Commission, King County Office of Cultural Resources, Seattle Arts Commission and was first prize winner of both the Portland and Northwest solo classical guitar competitions. Michael's education ranges from undergraduate studies at Berklee College of Music, where he studied improvisation with jazz greats Gary Burton and Billy Pierce, to Yale University where he received his Master of Music degree, to post-graduate studies at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy, as a scholarship student of Oscar Ghiglia. At Yale, he was awarded the George Knight Houpt Memorial Scholarship as a student of Benjamin Verdery and studied composition with Martin Bresnick and Jonathan Berger. From 1991-95 he served as head of the classical guitar programs at Lawrence University and the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. He currently resides in Seattle. |